UP migrants son is Himachals 1st polio case in 3 yrs

After a gap of three years,Himachal Pradesh has been re-infected with the polio virus as a two-and-a-half-year-old male child of a migrant labourer from Uttar Pradesh....

After a gap of three years,Himachal Pradesh has been re-infected with the polio virus as a two-and-a-half-year-old male child of a migrant labourer from Uttar Pradesh,who lives in Solan district of Himachal Pradesh,has tested positive with wild type-3 polio virus. The child has a history of constant travel from one of the high-risk districts of Uttar Pradesh Badaun.

The child reported symptoms of being affected with poliovirus in HP during the last week of October after which his parents brought him to Badaun in the first week of November where he tested positive for the virus. Experts fear the child might have caught the virus during his visit to Badaun in June-July this year.

Moreover,the child was staying in a slum at Nalagarh in Solan district and had never been covered under the National Immunisation Days (NID), the only immunisation programme followed in HP.

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The place where the child stayed was surrounded by a cluster of 11 slums in the industrial area with poor sanitation condition. It is still to be found out whether the other children living in the area were also left out during the NIDs, said Dr G P Dwivedi,WHO representative for National Polio Surveillance Project in HP.

The child has been confirmed for wild polio type-3 virus in the recently released report of fresh cases by National Polio Surveillance

and has been registered as the only polio case of the year in HP.

Deepak Sanan,Principal Secretary,Health,Himachal Pradesh Government,confirmed the case. The officials of the health department in HP informed that before this recent visit to Badaun,the family had visited Badaun in June-July this year.

Dr P K Jain,Chief Medical Officer,Badaun,also

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confirmed the case. The parents of the child,named Ajay,hail from Bilsi Block of Badaun, said Jain.

HP had last reported a polio case in 2006. Since we have not reported a polio case for a long time,we will organise a mop-up polio vaccination round for type-3 virus from December 6. It would be conducted in Solan,Una and Bilaspur districts, said Sanan.

The HP government also plans to strengthen its surveillance in areas having large migrant population.

Meanwhile,in another bad news for UP,three more vaccine-derived cases have been reported one each from Badaun,Ghaziabad and Pilibhit districts.

The police said that Kumar, a resident of Turbhe MIDC in Navi Mumbai, was driving his concrete mixer truck when it collided with an SUV.

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