Category Disability

After eradication: India’s post-polio problem

0 Comments read Disability, Health & Science, Poliomyelitis
Polio survivors performing Sufi dance on wheelchairs. Photo Credit: Ability Unlimited

By Neena Bhandari

New Delhi, 31.03.2014 (BMJ): As India celebrates three years of being polio free there is an urgent need to invest in medical care for the thousands of people who made the most of life after having had poliomyelitis but are now facing the debilitating post-polio syndrome (PPS).1 2 PPS describes the sudden onset of muscle weakness or fatigability in people with a history of acute paralytic poliomyelitis, usually occurring 15 to 40 years later.3 Many thousands of polio survivors experience muscle weakness, fatigue, joint and muscle pain, intolerance to cold, and difficulties in sleeping, breathing, or swallowing.

The March of Dimes, an international non-profit agency based in the United States and founded in 1938 by President and polio survivor Franklin D Roosevelt, warned in 2001 that as many as 20 million people worldwide are at risk of PPS, which could leave them using wheelchairs or ventilators for the rest of their lives.

After eradication_ India’s post-polio problem _ BMJ

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Polio Fact Sheet

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The World Health Organisation recommended immunization schedule calls for four doses of Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) to be given at birth and at 6, 10 and 14 weeks of age in polio-endemic countries like India. There should be an interval of at least four weeks between doses.

Routine immunization provides a basic level of immunity against polio. High routine immunization coverage also reduces the amount of circulating wild poliovirus, thus facilitating eradication.

As part of the supplementary immunization, two doses of OPV are administered to all children aged less than five years in the entire country on a national immunisation day. The two rounds are approximately a month apart. All children are immunized regardless of their prior immunization status.

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Polio never far away in the jet age

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By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 28.07.2007 (The Australian): On a sweltering February day in 1951, one-year-old Maura Outterside’s tiny body was gripped by high fever and muscle pain. As she became non-responsive, her parents wrapped her in cold towels and took her to St George Hospital in Sydney. A lumbar puncture confirmed every parent’s worst nightmare in those days — poliomyelitis, the viral disease responsible for crippling hundreds of thousands of children during the 20th century. Polio epidemics from 1930 to 1970 afflicted 40,000 Australians, including media tycoon Kerry Packer, talkback radio host John Laws and former Labor leader Kim Beazley.

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