oppn parties Bungling May Allow Polio Type-2 To Make A Comeback

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  • SP drops two candidates owing allegiance to Azam Khan from Rampur and Moradabad
  • In Assam, a controversy erupted after a picture of UPPL leader Benjamin Basumatary, lying on a stack of Rs 500 notes circulated on social media. UPPL is an ally of the BJP
  • AAP's Jalandhar-West MP Sushil Kumar Rinku joins the BJP. He was the only AAP Lok Sabha MP
  • Supreme Court dismisses Centre's plea to review its 2023 verdict in the PMLA case
  • Close save for passengers as they remain unhurt after the wings of two planes graze at Kolkata airport. Pilots derostered and inquiry ordered by DGCA
  • Bengal BJP leader Dilip Ghosh gets notice from the EC as well as the BJP for making ugly remarks about Mamata Banerjee's parentage
  • Sadanand Vasanth Date, who faught terrorists in the 26/11 attack and was awarded the Preisent's Police medal, has been appointed the head of the NIA
  • Centre will borrow Rs 7.5L cr in the first six months of FY25, nearly 50% of the target for the full year
  • 25 stocks, including SBI, will see same day trade settlements from today in the world's fastest settlement mode in both BSE and NSE
  • Stocks recover smartly on Wednesday: Sensex rises 526 points to 72996 and Nifty 118 points to 22123
  • Tennis: Rohan Bopanna-Matthew Ebden reached the semifinals of the Miami Open
  • IPL: records tumble as SRH beat MI in a high-scoring match. SRH score 277/3 with 18 sixes and Mumbai score 246 with 20 sixes to fall short by 31 runs. Atotal of 38 sixes, highest in an IPL match were hit and both teams combined to score 523 runs, the highest aggregate in an IPL match
  • Amul will launch fresh milk in the US
  • IPL: RCB beat Punjab by 4 wickets as Kohli and Karthik shine with the bat
  • India strongly objected to German foreign office remarks over the arrest of delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, called it "biased assumptions"
Delhi Lt Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena says government cannot be run from jail, hints at President's Rule in the capital ////// In a dangerous incident, the wings of two planes grazed while taxiing on the runway at Kolkata airport, all passengers were safe but DGCA ordered an inquiry and the pilots were derostered
oppn parties
Bungling May Allow Polio Type-2 To Make A Comeback

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2018-10-03 08:53:16

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
Through concerted efforts of the government and the citizens, India has become polio-free. But negligence in supervision threatens to reverse this. It has been reported that a strain of type-2 polio virus has been found in 1.5 lakh vials of three batches of polio vaccine manufactured by Biomed. It has been administered to children in UP, Telengana and Maharashtra.

It needs remembering that type-2 polio virus was withdrawn worldwide in April 2016. This immediately puts children born after that to a serious health risk as they are not immune to this virus. The virus was first detected by the WHO from stool samples in UP. Containment strategies will be put to severe test as the virus mutates in a few months and becomes immune to vaccination.

How the virus failed to be detected at the Central Drug Laboratory in Kasauli – where are drugs samples are sent for approval - is a mystery. It just shows that big loopholes exist in the regulatory framework and a chalta hai attitude is prevalent. It is a big challenge for India to identify children administered with the vaccine, see how far the virus has spread and put in place measures to stop it from spreading further. The children already affected also need to be treated.

This serious lapse shows that just achieving targets and boasting is not enough. In the absence of a strict regulatory framework, polio can make a comeback and threaten the future generations. India needs to drill in the heads of people running its manufacturing units and manning its laboratories and other regulatory checkpoints that playing with lives of people will not be tolerated at all.