Bruce Pannier
rferl.org
05/29/2010

The reemergence of an old disease in Tajikistan has led to an outbreak of a “polio war” between Moscow and Dushanbe.

The dispute erupted after news emerged in April that the viral disease, which primarily spreads in areas with poor sanitation and can cause paralysis within hours of contraction, had returned to Tajikistan in a big way.

Two deaths resulting from polio have been confirmed in the Central Asian country, although Russian officials have placed the number as high as 15. Some 104 cases of wild poliovirus have been confirmed, and nearly 440 cases of acute flaccid paralysis, the most common sign of polio, have been recorded.

In Russia, where hundreds of thousands of Tajik migrant workers trek for seasonal work, suspected cases have appeared among young children of Tajik migrant laborers in hospitals in Moscow and thousands of kilometers away in Angarsk, Irkutsk Region. These illnesses have led officials to introduce a number of measures to prevent the disease from spreading.

Tajik children less than six years of age, the most likely group to contract the virus, have been barred from entering the country and testing at border points has begun. In another move that threatens to further damage Tajikistan’s already battered economy, imports of dried fruit were banned by Moscow.

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The Times of India
05/26/2010

KANPUR: Three members of Pulse Polio party were severely thrashed in Rawatpur area under the Kalyanpur police station limits during an immunisation drive here on Wednesday.

According to reports, the incident took place when one Pappu Siddiqui and Munna Siddiqui, both residents of Rawatpur severely thrashed three health workers-Rohit Malhotra, Sapna Verma and Bedi Chauhan who reached their doorstep for door-to-door pulse polio immunisation drive. As informed by the district health officials, in order to evade the health workers from inquiries regarding their children, the duo in agitation started thrashing the Pulse Polio volunteers.

Taking action, the workers reported the incidence to the senior health authorities who in turn lodged an FIR against the accused with Kalyanpur police station. The nodal officer, Immunisation and Polio Campaign, Dr AP Chaturvedi informed, “For the door-to-door polio drive the volunteers are trained to ask certain set of questions to the families they approach. However, locals raise objection and are most of the time unwilling to provide the details like age of their children and whether or not they have earlier received polio vaccination.”

Notably during the immunisation drives, the family members try to avoid the polio drive volunteers by saying that their children are away or not keeping well. Such families do not say ‘no’ to vaccination openly. Even, the health workers come across cases where conservative section of minority community are still bounded by the myth that polio vaccines can lead to impotency in their children and lower their community’s birth rate.

However, when polio is still prevalent in the state, such defiances are being reported several times. As many as 20 cases of polio have been registered all across the country in the beginning of 2010 itself. These include 10 cases from Uttar Pradesh, 6 cases from Bihar and a single case of P3 polio virus from Haryana. Subsequently, Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal and Maharastra also reported one case each of P1 virus strain.

According to the details provided by the health department, in Uttar Pradesh single cases of P3 polio virus have been reported from Badaun, Baghpat, Etah and Firozabad. Whereas two cases each have been traced at Ghaziabad, Muzzafarnagar and Mathura.

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Norma Erickson
Examiner
05/15/2010

There were 1,606 cases of polio caused by wild poliovirus in 2009, according to the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report issued yesterday by the CDC. This number is down from the 1988 estimate of 350,000 polio cases. This reduction is indeed a remarkable accomplishment in the global health arena.

According to the same report, there were also 175 cases of “vacine-derived polioviruses (cVDPVs)” detected in people with AVP (acute flaccid paralysis) in six countries. The countries with cases of  “vaccine-derived polioviruses included Nigeria, Guinea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo and India.

These vaccine-derived poliovirus infections were detected through the Acute Flaccid Paralysis Surveillance system, monitored by the World Health Organization (WHO). This system is in place to measure the progress of the war to erradicate polio from the planet. It tracks all AFP cases in children under the age of 15, and any cases of AFP in older people where polio is suspected.

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Pediatric Supersite
05/13/2010

Vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 was detected in five of six documented cases of immunodeficiency-associated vaccine-derived polioviruses in Iran from 1995 to 2008 — indicating a global need to change to an inactivated polio vaccine schedule.

Researchers from several institutions in Iran reviewed these cases to define the prevalence of vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis. They also aimed to determine whether changing to an inactivated polio vaccine schedule and screening neonates for immunodeficiencies could reduce the risk for infection.

The first patient was a 17-month-old girl who acquired the infection in 1995. She was administered the inactivated polio vaccine due to a known antibody deficiency. She also had a healthy sibling who was administered the oral polio vaccine. Fecal samples indicated vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2. Recombination with the Sabin 1 strain was detected, with a crossover site at nt 5355, according to the results.

The second case occurred in a 7-month-old boy in 2005. He had been administered the oral polio vaccine at birth and at 2, 4 and 6 months. His fecal samples also indicated vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 and recombination with the Sabin 1 strain with a crossover site at nt 5358. He did not have HIV, but the expression of human leukocyte antigen DR on his lymphocytes was low, indicating major histocompatibility complex class II deficiency.

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IndiaOne
05/02/2010

Surat, May 2: Parents of a two-month old baby said that their daughter died after 48 hours of being given polio vaccine on by local civic authorities in Surat.

“After giving drops, health workers gave us tablets and asked us to give it to Khusbhu if she catches fever. We gave her the specified dose, but her condition worsened on Friday morning. We don’t know what happened to her suddenly.

“The only medicine we gave was the tablet given to us by the health worker,” the girl’s father Shailesh Limbachia said.

Alleging that the vaccines given by the health worker were outdated, Limbachia said that seven other children in their neighbourhood had fallen sick after consuming the vaccine.

However, the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) officials dismised that the allegations made the infant’s parents.