India seeks WHO support to eradicate polio

"We appreciate the technical support received from WHO and UNICEF and we look forward to achieve the goal of eradication of polio", Ramadoss said.

India has affirmed its total commitment to eradicate polio and sought continued technical and financial support from World Health Organisation, UNICEF and other multilateral agencies.

"We appreciate the technical support received from WHO and UNICEF and we look forward to working more closely till we achieve the goal of eradication of polio", Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss told a Ministerial Meeting for Asian Endemic Countries in Geneva.

He lauded the support of multilateral agencies like Rotary International, European Commission, JICA and the World Bank for their critical role in financing the programme. "I look forward to their continued and unstinted support till we eradicate polio from the country", he said.

With only 132 polio cases recorded last year, Government has decided to go in for "more focussed" implementation of the polio eradication programme as a final assault on the disease, he said.

Government was also considering replacing trivalent oral polio vaccine with the monovalent type I vaccine during May and June in areas where wild poliovirus type I was persisting, he said.

Observing that the country reported only 132 polio cases last year as against 1600 in 2002 and 225 in 2003, Ramadoss said the transmission was now restricted mainly to two largely populated states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which together accounted for 119 cases last year.