Click to play videoMoradabad: Shan-e-Ali had been given 15 doses of polio vaccine since his birth. There was no chance that he would suffer from polio. However, the one-and-a-half-year-old is now paralysed below the waist.
"He didn't miss it a single time," says Shan-e-Ali's mother, Shannu.
What is surprising is that all the cases of polio that have been detected in India in the past few years, have contracted it despite being vaccinated.
The polio vaccine is meant to target three strains of polio - P1, P2 and P3. In 2005, 66 new cases of polio were detected, 62 of which were of the P1 strain.
It was then that the government introduced the monovalent vaccine, which targets this particular strain. But despite the introduction of the new vaccine, 16 new cases of polio were detected in 2006. All of these were of the P1 type.
"In the areas where these cases were detected, we have not been given the monovalent vaccine and now the problem is not there anymore," Health Minister, Dr Anbumani Ramadoss said.
Most of the cases of polio are reported from the high risk endemic areas of UP and Bihar. This is a clear indicator of the fact that in the effectiveness of the vaccine is under question where issues of nutrition and sanitation are not being addressed alongside.
Associate Professor, JNU Ritu Priya, says, "You need a twin approach. Vaccination plus sanitation, nutrition and clean drinking water. Only vaccination will not curb polio."
More than Rs 3,000 crore have already been spent on the pulse polio programme. India has pushed the target of complete polio eradication by a year to 2007. But the question is - will this deadline be met?
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