Education is an Issue in the Indian Fight against Polio
Recently one workshop sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO) has brought the Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) under the spotlights again. But there is good news. According to statistics from the Ludhiana District Immunization, from 55,000 cases of AFP last year, less than 50 cases suffered from polio. In 2011, health officials detected only one single polio case in India.
The purpose of the workshop, which is part of the National Surveillance Program of WHO, organized in important cities such as Bathinda, Amritsar and Ludhiana, was to teach master-trainers ways to detect and eradicate an AFP case. Once these trainers are ready, they will offer workshops to their health staff too, in a continuous process of raising awareness among the population.
Health officials alert for the lack of information from parent’s side to administer polio vaccine to their children. According to them, children under 15 years old who have suffered from paralysis should send two stool samples for tests (in Kasauli) in order to point out if the cause of the paralysis is polio or not.
Statistics attested that from 125 countries worldwide, India, Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan are the four that still have the polio virus even after the polio immunization from 1988. One statement of the Indian National Polio Surveillance Project (NPSP) and the WHO reveals that the most high-risk region of polio incidence is Punjab in Pakistan. Eight cases of the disease have been seen there since 2005.
The purpose of the workshop, which is part of the National Surveillance Program of WHO, organized in important cities such as Bathinda, Amritsar and Ludhiana, was to teach master-trainers ways to detect and eradicate an AFP case. Once these trainers are ready, they will offer workshops to their health staff too, in a continuous process of raising awareness among the population.
Health officials alert for the lack of information from parent’s side to administer polio vaccine to their children. According to them, children under 15 years old who have suffered from paralysis should send two stool samples for tests (in Kasauli) in order to point out if the cause of the paralysis is polio or not.
Statistics attested that from 125 countries worldwide, India, Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan are the four that still have the polio virus even after the polio immunization from 1988. One statement of the Indian National Polio Surveillance Project (NPSP) and the WHO reveals that the most high-risk region of polio incidence is Punjab in Pakistan. Eight cases of the disease have been seen there since 2005.
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