Polio

What are the chances of India interrupting polio transmission in 2008?

Iam giving an example of my country Kenya.Even after attaining hard immunity with nearly 98% of children having been immunized and polio case having been reported for more than 6years.A new case was recently reported in north eastern province coming from Somalia.The threat of polio in kenya is due to conflicts in the neighbouring countries;somalia and southern sudan with influx of refugees entering kenya from these countries .Countries in war have no time for immunization campaigns.

The increased number of cases is a reflection of the other issues listed in the poll - in Northern Nigeria we found a high correlation between weak or non-existent health infrastructure and a rise in cases. Religious and political refusal was less of a factor, although the impact of rumours about the vaccine being a US trojan horse for mass sterilization did have an impact on communication campaigns for some time, necessitating strategies to provide accurate information. In Kano, religious leaders, koranic teachers etc - formerly a key source of resistance - are now becoming key agents in the fight against polio. Nevertheless, problems such as the lack of detailed and accurate data on missed children, and less than optimal communication research, continue to hamper efforts to eradicate polio. Local ownership is always a sensitive question - the state governments in Northern Niegria are extremely well capacitated and take full ownership. The difficulty is the gap between Federal Government promises and actual disbursements of resources has created some suspicion among state government officials of central government, and this affects the states' ability to fight polio. long-standing Noprth-South issues in Nigeria also underpin and impact on polio eradication efforts. the other issues mentioned - burnout from too many door-to-door campaings; and too few newborns vaccinated reflect part of the complex cause-effect nexus of polio eradication effforts.

The biggest threat to polio eradication especially in some parts of africa is culture. And the major way of alleviating this situation is to get the opinion leaders in this rural ares involved. A research conducted by obanua(2006)on the effectiveness of trado media in the dissermination of governmental policies and programmes in rural areas, shows that Ruralites tend to believe more in their community leaders than in any foriegn personnel (doctors, nurses, administrators)or any media campaign against polio.

Judging by the increasing immunisation coverage successes recorded in the strategies on the CI site, religious refusals may be manageable, but disruption of civil society caused by conflict is a cause of major migration in many areas, as well as increased poverty and ruined infrastructure. World wealth is being redirected to finance conflict and away from financing disease prevention.

The other major threat is the weakness of campaign operations.

Editorial Note: Change of poll today. The below comments are related to "What is the highest priority requirement to eradicate polio?". The above comments are related to our most current polio-related poll.

This has seemingly met with success in difficult regions.

I would say a combination of dialogue, leadership and more drops more often