Not long ago, a gentleman turned up at our door with a large box. “Madam,” he said gravely, “according to our records your children have not availed of the government’s Pulse Polio Programme yesterday. Please ensure that this is done now.”

Two days later, my daughter complained of a pain in the leg. “Could be vaccine-associated paralytic polio,” warned my doctor. Eventually that turned out to be a false alarm. But it left me with a vague sense of dread. The disquiet returned when a four-year-old Mumbai girl died of the virus recently. Alarmingly, the child’s records show she had received several doses of the vaccine this year. More alarmingly, the Pulse Polio Programme prescribes one dose every month, way in excess of the internationally prescribed standard of seven doses over a lifetime.

Government officials believe this unprecedented blitzkrieg will check the resurgence of our Ninja bug — 676 fresh cases in 2006, another 223 this year — and plug “coverage lapses” in the implementation of its aggressive Rs 2,000 crore Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI).The strategy: propaganda and door-to-door implementation.

At one level, this meticulous planning is impressive in a country where public health initiatives die early of official neglect. Meticulous it may be but it is not exactly democratic. Even if I am a layperson, as a parent I have some questions to ask. Is this battery of “supplementary” vaccinations safe for our children? Does the government have the authority to prescribe it in the absence of any long-term studies? And what about our right to be informed about the possible side-effects?

... contd.