Good news does not always flow freely in India. Too many children still go hungry. Violence against women endures. Inflation is soaring, and gay sex was just criminalized, again.
But today India got a boost: Jan. 13 marks the country’s third year of being free of polio, the highly infectious disease that attacks the nervous system of children in particular and can paralyze within hours. The last child to be crippled by polio in India was a 2-year-old girl in West Bengal, whose case was confirmed on Jan. 13, 2011. The fact that none have been found since is a stunning turnaround from 2009, when India hosted nearly half the world’s cases. That polio has been wiped from this vast, crowded country is arguably one of the greatest achievements in modern public health — and a stirring reminder that sheer determination can, in fact, change lives.
People used to say that ridding India of polio simply couldn’t be done. The virus has used the subcontinent as an incubator for centuries, and some experts argued that the slow process of vaccinating every child could never outpace the rapid transmission of the disease. Happily, they were wrong. Teaming up with groups like Rotary International, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Health Organization (WHO), the Indian government launched yearly national vaccination drives carried out by millions of volunteers and, eventually, backed up by sophisticated disease-surveillance and population-monitoring systems. In 2002, there were 1,600 polio cases in India. By 2009, there were 741. Today, there are none.
via India Is Polio-Free for 3rd Year, but It Can’t Afford to Be Complacent | TIME.com.
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