When the clocks strike midnight in New Delhi on Jan. 12, India will mark the first year in history it has recorded no new cases of polio, Reuters reported. It's a huge milestone for a country many experts thought would be the last place on earth to get rid of the crippling virus. And it's an exciting step forward for global health workers battling to make polio only the second human infectious disease after smallpox to be eradicated. "If all the data comes in clear over the next few weeks, then India, for the first time, will show up as an unshaded area on WHO polio maps," said Sona Bari of the World Health Organisation's (WHO) Global Polio Eradication Initiative. "This is a great start to the year for India." But while India celebrates, global health authorities are debating how to reduce the risk that vaccines containing live viruses may reintroduce the disease to places only just becoming polio-free. It's a tricky judgment of timing, risk and cost, but the fact it's being discussed is a sign of how far the polio fight has come. A disease that until the 1950s also crippled thousands every year in rich nations, polio attacks the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis within hours of infection. It often spreads in areas with poor sanitation - a factor that helped it keep a grip on India for many decades - and children under five are the most vulnerable. But it can be stopped with comprehensive, population-wide vaccination. The WHO has certified polio vaccines made by GlaxoSmithKline , Novartis, Sanofi-Aventis, Panacea Biotec and others for use in immunisation campaigns. India's success leaves just three countries -- Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria -- where polio is still endemic, and sets an example for what could be in store for them. Since the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was launched in 1988, there has been a 99 percent reduction in polio cases worldwide. Back then the disease was endemic in 125 countries and caused paralysis in nearly 1,000 children every day. By contrast, in the whole of 2011, there were only 620 new cases worldwide. -- SPA
