India has gone 3 years without a new case, which means it will soon be certified as having wiped out the scourge. PHOTO: AFP
President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as well as the health minister and the head of the World Health Organisation are all due at a New Delhi stadium to celebrate "India's victory over polio", the information ministry says.
India, long one of the biggest sources of the paralysing virus, has gone three years without a new case, which means it will soon be certified as having wiped out the scourge.
On the three-year anniversary of the last case, on January 13, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad hailed the "monumental milestone" and promised a celebration in honour of the officials, volunteers, NGOs and UN agencies which made it possible.
Polio is a virus spread through faecal matter that affects the central nervous system and can leave its victims with withered limbs or paralysis.
There is no cure but it can be prevented through mass vaccination programmes.
India's poor sanitation, mass internal migration and dilapidated public health system made experts once fear it would be the last country to eradicate the disease.
There are now only three countries where polio is endemic - Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria - and health workers say progress is being made towards global eradication.
Isolated polio outbreaks in the Horn of Africa and war-racked Syria emerged as new causes for concern in 2013, however, and polio vaccination workers in Pakistan are still being killed by suspected militants.
The wretched sight of crippled street hawkers or beggars on wheeled trolleys will also endure in India as a legacy of the country's time as an epicentre of new cases.
In the absence of official data, most experts agree there are several million survivors left with withered legs or twisted spines who face discrimination and often live on the margins of society.
India reported 150,000 cases of paralytic polio in 1985 and still accounted for half of all cases globally in 2009, with 741 infections that led to paralysis.
In 2010 the number of victims fell to double figures before the last case on January 13, 2011, when an 18-month-old girl in a Kolkata slum was found to have contracted it.
The girl, Rukshar Khatoon, is now attending school and leads a "normal life", although she still suffers pain in her right leg, doctors and her parents have told AFP.
Tuesday's celebration in New Delhi will be held in the Talkatora indoor stadium at 05:00 pm local time.
Official certification by the World Health Organisation that India has eradicated polio is likely to come next month.
COMMENTS (12)
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@stealth: We in India can say anything. No blasphemy law to punish us.
@Faceoff:
Those in India are not suffering from polio but are suffering due to the effects of polio that has crippled them permanently. Polio virus starts to affect your body very fast and cripples you in days or weeks and then the virus dies off. These people are no longer carriers of the virus and do not spread the virus to others. The crippled person you see on the street who had a polio attack once, does not spread polio to others as he/she no longer carries the virus but is crippled for life though. Their blood circulatory system, blood vessels, nervous systems and muscles are also badly affected and they rarely survive past 50 years of age.
India reported 150,000 cases of paralytic polio in 1985 and still accounted for half of all cases globally in 2009, with 741 infections that led to paralysis. It means there are millions of people suffering from polio in India who got the disease earlier. Nothing to boast about.
Half of the people crippled by polio so far in the world is in India. People who got the disease earlier are in India they cannot be cured now. They did put their act together, but nothing to point fingers on Pakistan and saying preposterous things.
as I said earlier, India eradicated polio to insult Pakistan infront of world.
soon pakistan will test polio warhead version of nasr missile.
now we should concentrate on improving health services ... especially public health services... andour next target should be tuberculosis.......also i wish pakistan best of luck ...hope u will too eradicate this disease....world eradication depends on u
High time we send some intruders affected with Polio and spoil the party.
we defeated
Polio Pakistan.....Chak dia !!! India.