32 Children Contract Vaccine Type Polio in India in last 2.5 years

Once again the Polio vaccine is indicted in causing most of the existing cases of polio in the world. Oral Polio vaccine is a attenuated live virus that can be shed by those vaccinated with it. This shedding can occur for weeks, as we have covered in this blog previously. It often results in paralytic polio and is not the 'anomally' this article tries to paint it as.

5 children contract polio from vaccine

Sumitra Deb Roy, TNN Aug 7, 2011, 01.09am
ISTMUMBAI: From being labelled the world's lone polio exporter in 2006 to reporting just one positive case till the eight month of this year, the polio scenario has never looked better than this for India. But celebrations are not in offing as the country is now faced with the challenge of fighting the vaccine-derived polio virus rather than the wild virus itself.

Simply put, the small quantity of the weakened polio virus present in the oral polio vaccine (to activate immune response) is the one seemingly causing polio in children now. At least, five children from Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Rajasthan, UP and MP have been struck by the vaccine-derived polio, whereas only one child from West Bengal has tested positive for the wild polio virus. The child from Chhattisgarh, who had a congenital anomaly and was highly immuno-deficient, recently died. There were 21 cases of vaccine-derived polio in 2009 that came down to 6 in 2010.

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