Times of India
30 July 2010
Patna, India

If CAG says polio has not yet been eradicated in Bihar, it has rightly said so, executive director of the state health society Sanjay Kumar said here on Thursday.

Kumar, however, said that the state has initiated several measures to contain polio cases and that it had also been successful in its mission to a great extent.

Addressing mediapersons here, he said that no type 1 polio (P1) virus had been reported for over nine months in the state, first time ever in the history of polio eradication in the state. The last time a P1 case was reported was in October 2009, Kumar said and added that in 2010, so far, only six cases of polio has been reported all type 3.

The last time a P3 type virus was detected was in January 2010. However, after the introduction of a bivalent vaccine in January, no P3 case was detected in the state, Kumar said.

Similarly, in western UP, no P1 case was detected since November 2009, Kumar said.

He said that as three months July August and September, which is the monsoon period is considered a high transmission phase, intense and focused initiatives to protect the vulnerable populations have been initiated particularly in the 41 high rise risk blocks in the Kosi belt.

Notably, out of the 107 blocks across the country, where polio cases have been reported, 41 lies in Bihar.

With the detection of four P1 cases in Nepal and as many cases in West Bengal, Kumar said that polio immunization is also being done at all the 46 transit points along the Nepal–Bihar border with 93 transit teams deployed for one–month period starting from July 25.

This year, six rounds of polio immunization was completed in the state with four rounds of BoPV and 2 rounds of MoPV1 vaccine.