India is Polio Free for the Fourth Consecutive year

 

The Health Ministry, has declared that India remains polio free for the fourth consecutive year. The declaration comes as a response to the 200 samples in Uttar Pradesh testing positive for polio-like symptoms.

 

The ministry has clarified that these Bareilly cases, showing Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) as well as 18000 other AFP cases in the year 2015 have been tested and are found to be negative for poliovirus. Moreover, it said that Polio surveillance in India has been set up as per the global guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO) in which all cases of paralysis with sudden onset in children up to 15 years (which is called Acute Flaccid Paralysis or AFP) are reported and investigated by the polio surveillance network. All stool Samples are tested in WHO-accredited laboratories and India supports high degree of polio surveillance that even surpasses the global recommendations