WHO takes India off polio list

India, which has been polio-free for over a year now, has been taken off the list of polio endemic countries by the World Health Organisation. The Health Minister announced this at the polio summit 2012 in New Delhi. There were only four countries in the WHO endemic list, including Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan. The Prime Minister, while lauding the achievement, said the real credit goes to 23 lakh volunteers who repeatedly vaccinated children even in the most remote areas. He said the success of the effort shows that “team work pays”. After being removed from the list, India will have to remain polio free for the next two years to achieve the polio-free status with concerted efforts and an emergency preparedness and response plan, WHO representative in India Natela Menabde said. She said it is not just an achievement for India but a major progress for global polio eradication.

India records one year without polio cases

The Scientific Consortium for Health Without Borders salutes all those making it possible.


WHO News Release 12 JANUARY 2012

India appears to have interrupted wild poliovirus transmission, completing one year without polio since its last case, in a 2-year-old girl in the state of West Bengal, on 13 January 2011. 

India was once recognized as the world’s epicentre of polio. If all pending laboratory investigations return negative, in the coming weeks India will officially be deemed to have stopped indigenous transmission of wild poliovirus. The number of polio-endemic countries, those which have never stopped indigenous wild poliovirus transmission, will then be reduced to a historical low of three: Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan.

However, there remains no room for complacency. India must maintain sensitive surveillance and high childhood immunity against wild poliovirus to guard against any importation of polio until eradication is achieved globally. In 2011, Afghanistan and Pakistan have both seen alarming increases in polio cases, and poliovirus from Pakistan re-infected China (which had been polio-free since 1999). In Africa, active polio transmission continues in Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria, with outbreaks in West and Central Africa in the past 12 months reminding the world that as long as polio exists anywhere, it remains a threat everywhere.

Global health leaders today paid tribute to the Government of India for its leadership and financial commitment to the polio eradication effort, and to the millions of vaccinators, community mobilizers, Rotarians, parents and caregivers who have supported polio eradication for more than a decade. The scale of the eradication effort in India is mind-boggling: each year, more than 170 million children under the age of 5 are vaccinated in two national immunization campaigns, with up to 70 million children in the highest-risk areas vaccinated multiple times in additional special campaigns; the whole effort requires nearly a billion doses of oral polio vaccine annually.