Polio eradication in India: Progress, but environmental surveillance and vigilance still needed

Poliomyelitis has appeared in epidemic form, become endemic on a global scale, and has been reduced to near elimination, all within the span of documented medical history.Nevertheless, effective vaccinations, global surveillance network, development of accurate viral diagnosis prompted the historical challenge, global polio eradication initiative (GPEI). Environmental surveillance of poliovirus means monitoring of wild polio virus (WPV) and vaccine derived polio virus (cVDPV) circulation in human populations by examining environmental specimens supposedly contaminated by human feces. The rationale for surveillance is based on the fact that PV-infected individuals, whether presenting with disease symptoms or not, shed large amounts of PV in the feces for several weeks. As the morbidity: infection ratio of PV infection is very low, and therefore this fact contributes to the sensitivity of poliovirus surveillance, which under optimal conditions can be better than that of the standard acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) surveillance. The World Health Organization (WHO) has included environmental surveillance of poliovirus in the new Strategic Plan of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative for years 2010–2012 to be increasingly used in PV surveillance, supplementing AFP surveillance and the strategic advisory group of experts on immunization (SAGE) recommended a switch from tOPV–bOPV to remove the threat of cVDPV2 and to accelerate the elimination of WPV type 1 and 3 as bOPV is a more immunogenic vaccine and to introduce one dose of IPV in their vaccination schedule prior to OPV cessation.

► India now has been polio-free country for more than a year. ► Cross-border transmission of polio virus is the big concern for India. ► Environmental surveillance of Wild type PVs and cVDPVs is important. ► To design a new vaccine policy for the future. ► To introduce IPV and to safely discontinue OPV after eradication of WPVs.