The Union Health Ministry will soon introduce the Bivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (bOPV) in specific areas of the country in its polio eradication drive as trials in India have shown that the bOPV vaccine is more efficacious than the traditionally used trivalent oral polio vaccine (tOPV).

The Health Ministry's decision in this regard is based on the recommendations of India Expert Advisory Group (IEAG), the advisory body to the government of India on polio eradication. The IEAG has pointed out that the trials in India with bOPV have shown the vaccine to be more efficacious than the traditionally used tOPV and almost as good as the currently used monovalent oral polio vaccines mOPV1 and mOPV3 – which protect against the corresponding poliovirus type.

The IEAG is of the view that the virologic, genetic, operational and technical evidences show that India is on the right path for polio eradication. Although the number of polio cases has increased in 2009 as compared to 2008, the geographic scope of both poliovirus type-1 and type-3 has reduced further. It further opined that the use of the bivalent OPV is expected to achieve interruption of transmission of polio type-1 while maintaining control of polio type-3 and once this is achieved, the strategy will shift to interruption of polio type-3.

According to the latest statistics with the WHO monitoring cell, India ranked second in the case of polio cases last year, behind Nigeria which recorded 798 cases. This year, up to July 31, India reported 206 cases whereas Nigeria had 363 cases. Pakistan is standing way down on the third spot with 31 cases.

Earlier, as the country continued to struggle with spurt in the cases of polio outbreaks, the government had approved Rs 3203 crore for the eradication of polio for the next three years from the current financial year. The main objective of the project is to achieve the goal of zero transmission of polio and obtaining international polio free certification. For accomplishment of this goal, the annual strategy for polio eradication is decided on the basis of the recommendations of the IEAG consisting of national and international experts.

Even though the disease has come down drastically in other parts of the country, the outbreak of the disease in areas like Western UP and some parts of Bihar continues to place India as the second most afflicted nation in the world, after Nigeria. From as low as 66 cases in 2005, the number of polio cases went up to 676 in 2006, 874 in 2007 and 559 in 2008.