Why in news?
World polio day was celebrated and the National Polio Program has been started.
What is Polio?
- Polio-myelitis is a contagious viral disease that affects mainly small children and is highly infectious.
- It is primarily spread through a faecal-oral route or less often, a specific medium (eg. infected water or food) from person to person and multiplies in the intestines from which it can enter the nervous system and cause paralysis.
- At first the disease does not splash in nearly 90 percent of cases.
- But the problem begins and leads to paralysis when the virus enters into the central nervous system which will remain permanently.
- Early signs include fever, exhaustion, cough, diarrhea, neck stiffness and leg pain.
- No cure has been found and early immunization can prevent it.
- In 2014, India was officially declared polio-free, along with the rest of the South-East Asia Region.
- On 13 January 2011, West Bengal and Gujarat were India’s latest reported cases of wilderness polio.
- The government has incorporated Inactivated Polio Vaccine(IPV) into its routine immunization program in order to provide additional protection for infants.
- The main aim behind this ambitious programme is to strengthen the children’s immune system and to provide double protection against polio.
- Until polio is eradicated globally, Oral Polio vaccine(OPV) is still the main preventive measure against polio. Thus, IPV is recommended in addition to OPV and does not replace OPV.
- IPV may be given alone or in combination with other vaccines as an injectable vaccine.
- For IPV, all three poliovirus forms ( type 1, type 2 and type 3) have serum immunity, resulting in paralyzed poliomyelitis defense.
- India became the first country to incorporate fractional IPV doses in early 2016 into the infant-immunization system in the world.
