5 children contract polio from vaccine

Mumbai: 7th August 2011

From being labelled the world’s lone polio exporter in 2006 to reporting just one positive case till the eight month of this year, the polio scenario has never looked better than this for India. But celebrations are not in offing as the country is now faced with the challenge of fighting the vaccine-derived polio virus rather than the wild virus itself. Simply put, the small quantity of the weakened polio virus present in the oral polio vaccine is the one seemingly causing polio in children now. At least, five children from Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Rajasthan, UP and MP have been struck by the vaccine derived polio, whereas only one child from West Bengal has tested positive for the wild polio virus.


Read more