WHO: Indian city at high risk for polio

From The Times of India:

LUDHIANA, India -- “Ludhiana is at a high risk when it comes to polio,” revealed the consultants from WHO, who were in city on March 29 to oversee the way things are handled when it comes to pulse polio campaign. A campaign had already been launched on Sunday laying special emphasis on migrant population.

However, it is pertinent to mention that till now three cases of p1 virus have been reported from the state — one each from Jalandhar and Mohali and Ludhiana — during the last pulse polio campaign held in December. The case had come as a trouble for the health department as a one-and-a-half-year-old boy from Jagraon had been identified found suffering from the virus resulting in intervention of the WHO members.

On the condition of anonymity,, one of consultants from WHO, said, “During the recent pulse polio campaign, p1 cases have been identified from West Bengal. But as Ludhiana is an industrial town, and people from all regions including West Bengal come here, the city is at high risk of getting infection.” He added that already a special round is going on only for slums areas of the city so that in future no case surfaces from the region.

Dr Puneet Juneja, medical officer and in charge for pulse polio campaign, said, “Our target is to cover 2.15 lakh children living in slum areas of the city. As the migrant populace keep on shifting, it gets difficult for us to identify these children that is why this special drive.” He admitted that the city is indeed at high risk because of the floating population.

Dr Pradeep Sharma, medical officer, said the main emphasis is to check the p1 virus. He added that till now the incidence of pulse polio is very negligible in the state, but a few months back a case in Jammu and Kashmir has been found and presumably the lineage would be same as that of the case detected in Ludhiana.