India reported 741 new cases of polio as recently as 2009 – about half
of all cases reported that year — more than any other country in the
world.
It then took a more aggressive approach, and ramped up its focus on
high-risk groups. The program now covers 170 million children in two
rounds of vaccination a year. Just three years later, the WHO took
India’s name off the list of polio-endemic countries. In 2012, there
were only 223 polio cases worldwide, down from 350,000 in 1988.
For the 34-year-old Mr. Ferris, India’s completion of three years
without polio will have enormous personal significance. He contracted
polio in the southern Indian city of Coimbatore when he was an infant –
around the time India first began promoting the use of the oral polio
vaccine that has been the mainstay of eradication efforts.
“That was my eye-opening experience in terms of what the reality of
life is like for many polio survivors in India and around the world,” he
said.
Mr. Ferris has since campaigned in Canada for global polio
eradication, but also in other countries where the disease still
prevails.
“To have India have no new cases of polio on January 13 is truly one
of the greatest public health achievements of all time,” said Mr.
Ferris.
But, warns Mr. Ferris, India should not become complacent. Health
experts say that polio can always recur in a polio-free country as long
as it remains endemic in some part of the world. According to the WHO,
Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria remain in that category.
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