Hyderabad: India continues to maintain its polio-free status despite the presence of the wild polio vaccine strain in the Amberpet drain, the Union health ministry said on Wednesday. The vaccine- derived polio virus was found around the Amberpet drain, a place which hosts three railway stations, health officials said.
A senior doctor said, “Whether the faecal material was local or from outside is difficult to verify. As it was found in Hyderabad children inside the city and on the outskirts must be covered.”
VDVP is a rare strain of the polio virus that genetically mutated from the strain in the Oral Polio Vaccine.
Dr Srinivas Rao of the National Health Mission who is also overseeing the polio vaccination programme said, “The polio vaccine mutates when the immunity of the child is low. It passes out from the body through faecal matter and mixes with sewage. It's a rare case but has been found earlier also. The child who has excreted the virus is also not affected and is safe. Also, there have not been any incidence of polio in the area around the sewage drain. Hence, as a precautionary measure, a vaccination campaign will be taken up.”
All stakeholders of the government and NGOs have joined the campaign to ensure that parents bring their children to the notified centre to receive the inactivated polio vaccine. The campaign will cover three lakh children from June 20 to June 26.
Considering the possibility that the Amberpet virus could have come from a child from outside Hyderabad, the health officials said that the World Health Organisation is carrying out regular testing all over the country. Thirty sites across the country have been tested between January 2015 and May 2016.
According to a statement released by the Union health ministry, 14 sewage samples were collected from different parts of the country and they tested positive for Vaccine Derived Polio Virus.
None of these VDPVs has affected any children so far, the health ministry said.
