Pakistan to learn from India’s polio success

[IndoCarib]

A nine-member Pakistani delegation led by Shahnaz Wazir Ali, social activist and special assistant to Pakistani prime Minister, will visit India to learn from the country’s experience in eradicating polio.

The delegation will hold talks with health ministry officials on Thursday and witness a pulse polio camp in Ghaziabad. With not a single case of polio reported from India for more than a year now, the country was taken off the list of polio-endemic countries by the World Health Organisation (WHO) recently.

However, neighbouring countries – Afghanistan and Pakistan – and Nigeria are still fighting the polio virus.

As a preventive measure, India has set up polio booths at Attari and Wagah borderd touching Pakistan where small children are immunised before entering India.

Pakistan’s polio figures rose from 144 in 2010 to 198 in 2011, while already 16 cases have been reported thus far this year. It is believed that the Sindh region in Karachi has the highest cases every year due to migration from neighbouring areas.

Meanwhile, probably inspired by India’s immunisation drives, particularly Pulse Polio, the United Nations World Health Assembly (WHA) has decided to hold World Immunisation Week each year in the last week of April.

The WHA has also urged member states to eliminate the non-immunised areas and maintain very high population immunity against polio viruses through routine immunisation programmes and, where necessary, supplementary immunisation activities.

They were also urged to maintain vigilance for poliovirus importations, and the emergence of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus.


Pakistan to learn from India’s polio success - India - DNA

 

[KRAIT]

Help thy neighbour.

 

[T90TankGuy]

its a very good idea to co operate in this field . the sooner we eradicate this disease from the world , the better for all human kind.

 

[ZABASHO]

just saw Bill Gates interview on NDTV, he did mention that, he kinda pointed in the direction that he is doing something towards solving India-Pakistan conflict

 

[ALOK31]

Zardari's sister in India for tips to fight polio
NEW DELHI: Lessons learnt from India, specially how it tracked down and immunized its large migrant population against polio, an exercise that finally led to the country eradicate the virus -- will now help Pakistan combat the crippling disease.

Shahnaz Wazir Ali, the Pakistani prime minister's national focal person on polio eradication who is leading a nine-member delegation to India, told TOI in an interview that the focus will now be on its migratory Pashtun community.

According to Ali, who met health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and Bill Gates on Thursday, over 75% of the polio cases in Pakistan are among this group and "we are keen to learn from India's experience of tracking, mobilizing and immunizing the migrant population".

Pakistan will also emulate India's surveillance and monitoring system that successfully generated real time data on how many kids are actually missed by vaccinators and how they are later tracked down and given polio drops.

Pakistan is among the three remaining polio endemic countries in the world along with Afghanistan and Nigeria. India was struck off the list of polio endemic countries in February 2012 after completing over a year without any fresh case of polio.

Ali said, "We have invited minister Azad to visit us so that we can better learn from India's polio experience. We have also asked for regular exchange between polio expert groups from both countries."

The Pakistani delegation included member of the national task force on polio Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho, who is Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari's sister.

Dr Pechuho told TOI, "The polio threat is highest in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The insurgency and the military action made accessibility to the FATA areas limited, making it difficult for our vaccinators to reach people. The lacunas in our programme can now be filled from what we have learnt from India."

Ali added, "Another reason were the floods that caused massive destruction in Pakistan. Large parts were inundated and infrastructure destroyed. All our energies were then focused on relief and polio programme took a hit."

Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan - the only three polio endemic countries -- have seen a significant increase in new cases in 2011 compared with 2010. Afghanistan and Pakistan experienced a 220% and 37% increase respectively.

Further, Nigeria and Pakistan were the only two countries with confirmed circulation of the P3 virus strain since September 2011.

Ali was all praise for the Indian government's financial commitment to the polio programme. India's health ministry spent almost Rs 12,000 crore on polio from its own pocket.

She said, "Our national emergency polio programme floated in 2011 worth $177 million is being financed by the government. We are at present short by $24 million. For our routine immunization programme, we have 2.5 billion Pakistani rupees financed mainly by the Gates Foundation, the Japanese government, USAID and World Bank."

According to Dr Pechuho, more than exporting the virus to other countries, "we are more worried about internal spread of the virus. Last year, 18 cases of polio were from FATA while this year till now we have seven cases from this region".

India's Pulse Polio campaigns involved nearly 24 lakh volunteers, 1.5 lakh supervisors and Rapid Response Teams for a swift response.

Similar to India which increased surveillance against polio on the Line of Control (LoC), Pakistan has set up 22 posts, manned round the clock, on its Afghan border, 8 in Balochistan and one in China to vaccinate children coming into against polio.

India had set up vaccination booths at Chakdabagh (Poonch) and at Kaman (Baramullah) of Jammu and Kashmir, Munabo railway station in the Barmer district of Rajasthan and at Wagah border and Attari railway station in Punjab to administer polio drops to all children below 5 years of age, coming in from Pakistan. This was done to control the biggest threat of importation of the virus.

"We will now emulate India and focus on generating real data on children vaccinated and missed. We will focus on our migrant population and carry out a mapping exercise on their movements. We will conduct special polio immunization rounds just like India did to reach out to more children," Ali said.

Bill Gates said India's story illustrated the possibility of tremendous progress even in the face of difficult economic times, a challenging environment and competing development needs.

The surveillance for poliovirus in India is among the most sensitive in the world. As many as 35,325 reporting sites across the county report Acute Flaccid Paralysis cases for collection of stool samples and testing in the laboratories for poliovirus. The progress also results from ensuring 99% coverage in each vaccination round.

According to Gates, eradication of polio globally could save the world up to $50 billion over the next 25 years.

 

[Big Boss]

Pakistan keen to India's polio success | Business Standard

Pakistan keen to emulate India's polio success - India News - IBNLive

From Railways to power and now health sector pakistan is seeking India's help for everything.

 

[Developereo]

Good idea. Pakistan would have similar cultural issues that India had to deal with.

 

[KRAIT]

Helping each other out in these areas will be good confidence building measure.

 

[TopCat]

Good idea. Pakistan would have similar cultural issues that India had to deal with.

What cultural issue to eradicate polio? Just immunize the god damn child after birth. BD eradicated polio 20 years ago yet waiting for India to declare polio free so that we could take the polio vaccine out of immunization program.

 

[Developereo]

What cultural issue to eradicate polio? Just immunize the god damn child after birth. BD eradicated polio 20 years ago yet waiting for India to declare polio free so that we could take the polio vaccine out of immunization program.

People don't always trust immunization schemes, deny access to baby girls, etc.

 

[third eye]

People don't always trust immunization schemes, deny access to baby girls, etc.

The issues are much more than this & we have had to deal with all sorts of them

Religious leaders took this as an attempt to sterilise a particular segment of ppl , it took a concerted awareness programme coupled with education / inter action with religious leaders to drive home the message & its relevance.

Mis information for vested interests coupled with some SNAFU's were also some of the challenges faced.

 

[Big Boss]

People don't always trust immunization schemes, deny access to baby girls, etc.

1. Its only because of uneducated orthodox Muslims that it have taken so many years to eradicate polio and yeah visitirs from pakistan are the another reason.

2. There is no problem about the girl child as its the local women who used to give polio shots.

 

[Hafizzz]

Paralytic polio returns to dent India’s pride
Paralytic polio returns to dent India’s pride

Paralytic polio - derived from oral polio vaccine (OPV) — used for vaccinating millions of children — has struck India to cripple a child in West Bengal within a week of the World Health Organisation (WHO) declaring the country free from the wild polio virus.

A case of vaccine derived polio virus (VDPV) type 2 has been confirmed in a five-month-old child in the Lalbagh block of Murshidabad district, reminding the health policy planner that the battle with polio is yet to be won.

However, there is a basic difference between the polio that struck the Bengal block and the virus that did not raise its ugly head in the country over the last one year. While the WHO recognition comes due to the effort to keep the country free from wild polio virus, the incident that occurred in West Bengal is a case of vaccine derived polio, which is rare but with the real danger of continuing with the oral polio vaccine for years without improving the overall immunisation scenario.

Even though the country was free from wild polio virus in 2011, there were seven cases of VDPV last year in Chhattishgarh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh. While one child had congenital immune deficiency in Dhamtari district in Chhattisgarh, others lived in areas with low routine immunization coverage, according to the national polio surveillance being run by the Union Health Ministry and the WHO.

The classification, however, means little for the victims as both wild and vaccine-derived virus cause the same crippling paralysis in children.

In VDPV, the virus was derived from OPV due to prolonged intestinal infection and removal of certain beneficial genetic changes, veteran virologist T Jacob John said, adding that VDPV was similar to wild polio virus as it was neuro-virulent and could be transmitted easily.

It happens because OPV is made from live but weakened polio virus, a few which can come back as disease-causing agent. In India most of the VDPV cases are P-2 variety, which was eliminated from
the wild way back in 1999.

“Circulating VDPV is wild-like and if allowed to survive in humans, it will replace the niche vacated by wild viruses. So it is indeed a threat to eradication,” John who retired as professor at Christian Medical College in Vellore and advises the Union Health Ministry on polio told Deccan Herald.

The NPSP claimed that none of the VDPVs detected in India in the last two years showed evidence of circulation. None of the VDPV strains detected in India during 2010 and 2011 are genetically linked to each other.

VDPV is risk, long recognised in the OPV campaign. “VDPVs may already be in silent transmission. If so they will flare up into outbreaks, epidemics and exportation. So we must stop OPV but we cannot simply stop OPV. Its a Catch 22 situation,” John commented.

 

[KRAIT]

^ You just like to burst the bubble.

 

[Ammyy]

However, there is a basic difference between the polio that struck the Bengal block and the virus that did not raise its ugly head in the country over the last one year. While the WHO recognition comes due to the effort to keep the country free from wild polio virus, the incident that occurred in West Bengal is a case of vaccine derived polio, which is rare but with the real danger of continuing with the oral polio vaccine for years without improving the overall immunisation scenario.

Even though the country was free from wild polio virus in 2011, there were seven cases of VDPV last year in Chhattishgarh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh. While one child had congenital immune deficiency in Dhamtari district in Chhattisgarh, others lived in areas with low routine immunization coverage, according to the national polio surveillance being run by the Union Health Ministry and the WHO.

I am amazed they are monitoring even a single case from billions of people