West Bengal Introduced An Additional Dose Of Polio

Recently, The West Bengal government announced that it was introducing an additional dose of injectable polio vaccine as part of the Universal Immunization Programme (UIP) for children.

• An additional dose of inactivated poliovirus (IPV) at nine months will protect against any polio thereafter — Vaccine Associated Paralytic Polio or Vaccine Derived Polioviruses

What is Polio?

• It can invade the central nervous system and as it multiplies, destroy the nerve cells that activate muscles, causing irreversible paralysis in hours. 
• Polio typically affects children aged 5 years or younger. 
  • It can result in muscle weakness, permanent disability, and even death.
• According to the India Polio Learning Exchange (along with UNICEF):  Of those paralysed:  5-10% die when their breathing muscles become immobilised.
• Three types of wild poliovirus (WPV): Type 1, Type 2, and Type 3. 
  • Type 2 Wild Poliovirus: It was declared eradicated in September 2015. 
  • The last detection was in India, 1999. 
  • Type 3 Wild Poliovirus: It was declared eradicated in October 2019. It was last detected in November 2012. 
  • Only type 1 wild poliovirus remains.
• No Cure But Vaccines: There is no cure for polio, but there are safe, effective vaccines which, given multiple times, protect a child for life.

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Polio Vaccines

• Jonas Salk developed the first polio vaccine. 
  • Inactivated poliovirus vaccine
    • IPV protects people against all three types of poliovirus. 
    • IPV does not contain live virus and cannot cause disease.
    • It protects people from polio disease but does not stop transmission of the virus.

• Oral polio vaccine
  • Albert Sabin Developed Another vaccine:  It contained live polio strains weakened by growing them serially in macaque cells, making them unfit for human infection.
  • It contained live virus particles, it had to rely on its natural mode of infection and was therefore administered orally. This was the oral polio vaccine (OPV).
  • Vaccine-derived polioviruses (VDPVs): In rare instances, the vaccine-virus may be able to circulate over time and mutate in communities with insufficient immunity or immunocompromised individuals. 
    • These mutated OPV strains can cause polio disease. They are called poliovirus variants or vaccine-derived polioviruses (VDPVs).

Polio Status in India

• In 1995: India launched the Pulse Polio Immunization Programme in 1995 brought down polio cases from 50,000-100,000 each year in the 80s to zero in 2012.
• In 2012: the WHO removed India from the list of endemic countries
• In January 2014:  India was declared polio-free after three years of zero cases.
• 27th March 2014: South-East Asia Region of WHO including India has been certified polio-free by “The Regional Certification Commission (RCC)” 
• India introduced the injectable polio vaccine in the Universal Immunization Programme to reduce chances of Vaccine Derived Polio Virus (VDPV), which continues to happen in the country.

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