Rotary honour for Azad for efforts to eradicate polio

Rotary International today honoured Union Health & Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad as "Polio Eradication Champion" for his "untiring efforts" to eradicate the disease from the country.

Mr Azad was presented the award at a function here to mark the National Immunisation Day (NID) for polio, which also marked the the launch of the bivalent vaccine in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. The vaccine was launched in Bihar last month to tackle the disease in focus area.

According to an official press release, about 42 million children will get the new drops. Overall, 170 million children are likely to be covered in this round of NID.

"We are committed to eradicate the polio menace from the country and focussed efforts will definitely bring desired results with the introduction of Bivalent vaccine in UP, Delhi and Bihar" Mr Azad said.

The Polio Eradication Champion Award is given by Rotary International since 1995 to recognize governments and world leaders who have made outstanding contributions toward the goal of eradicating polio. Previous winners have included Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Other leaders who have been honoured with the award include German Chancellor Angela Merkel, former Australian Prime Minister John Howard; former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Mr Alpha Oumar Konare, former chair of the African Union Commission; former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan; President Yar’Adua of Nigeria; former United States President Bill Clinton; former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan; President Mamadou Tandja of Niger and UN Secretary General Ban-Ki-Moon.

There are three strains of wild polio virus - P1, P2 & P3. Type 2 wild polio virus (P2) was eliminated in 1999. Efforts are being made to eradicate P1 and P3 also. As P1 is the more virulent type of the two, the current strategy is to eliminate it first while keeping P3 under control. Once P1 is eradicated, efforts to eradicate P3 will be made. Initially trivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (which caters to all the three strains of wild polio virus) was used in the campaign. Subsequently, the more efficacious monovalent vaccine was introduced in the programme to handle the type 1 and type3 wild polio virus. While the monovalent vaccine has been found to be effective in containing the transmission of P1, it has affected the control of transmission of P3. The bivalent vaccine developed recently can control P1 and P3 simultaneously.

The pulse polio programme was started in 1995 with the objective to eradicate poliomyelitis. Prior to the launch of the campaign, the number of paralytic cases due to polio was in the range of approximately 50,000 every year. The campaign has helped to bring about a drastic reduction in the number of paralytic cases due to polio and it is now limited to a few hundreds now.

According to the release, 33 States/UTs are now free of indigenous transmission of wild polio virus. UP and Bihar remain as the only two endemic States in the country for wild polio virus where indigenous transmission is still continuing.

The Government has adopted a multi-pronged approach where, on the one hand, efforts are being made to vaccinate each and every child with Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) and on the other, efforts to ensure sanitation, hygiene and clean drinking water are being ensured, the release said.

In 2009, as many as 721 cases have been reported so far. Out of these, 641 are wild poliovirus type 3 (WPV3) and 79 are wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1). One case is a mixture of both, WPV1 + WPV3, the release added.

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