Even as the government is going the whole hog to eradicate polio with intensive nationwide drives and reverting to monovalent oral polio vaccine (mOPV), at least 31 new cases have been reported until April end this year.

At the global level, Nigeria alone is ahead of India with 54 cases out of the total 111 cases reported across the world so far. Five new cases were reported in the past week (three type 3s and two type 1s) from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Gujarat, with the most recent case had the onset of paralysis on 24 March 2007, according to the latest WHO statistics.

The Centre had implemented two full national immunisation days (NID) in January and February and one sub-national immunisation days (SNID) in UP, Bihar and other high-risk districts in March and April. Besides, mop up rounds have been implemented in areas where cases were reported on March 18 using mOPV, said an official in the Health Ministry.

The SNID is being planned during this month also in the vulnerable areas of UP and Bihar and programmatic focus would be increased in endemic states for ensuring highest quality of supplementary immunisation activity (SIAV), the official said.

According to the latest reports, Uttar Pradesh reported 16 cases, followed by Bihar with 11 cases. Andhra Pradesh had two cases while Haryana and Maharashtra had one each so far. A total of 674 cases were reported during 2006, with UP alone contributing 546 cases followed by 61 in Bihar and 19 in Haryana. At the global level, Nigeria led the tally with 1124 cases while Pakistan reported 40 cases last year.

The government is planning to deploy high level officials in UP and Bihar besides increasing focus on mechanism to reduce the number of missed out children in West UP. A plan is also afoot to re-train the volunteers for more effective performance.

It is also being planned to involve religious leaders, panchayats and celebrities for community awareness and mobilisation of vaccination, official said.

In western Uttar Pradesh, in the five high-risk districts in and around Moradabad district, no type 1 polio cases have been reported since 2 October 2006.

Staggered SIAs are continuing in May in key high-risk areas of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. WHO Surveillance Medical Officers (SMOs) from low-risk areas continue to be re-deployed to high risk areas to support activities.

The Centre had decided to go back to mOPV instead of so far used trivalent oral polio vaccine (tOPV), despite some differences of opinion among the experts.