NEW DELHI--Calling India "the number one priority for stopping the transmission of polio," WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland this week traveled to the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh to launch a final assault on the disease. With 55 new cases already this year, Brundtland says that "Uttar Pradesh is the epicenter" of a global battle to eradicate polio by 2005.
CREDIT: P. BAGLA
India joins Nigeria, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Niger, and Somalia as the only countries with indigenous wild polio, and last year it was home to five of every six new cases. Uttar Pradesh was also the source of outbreaks in two other Indian provinces, and this winter a Lebanese youth who never left his village was paralyzed by a virus traced back to India.
WHO officials say the latest epidemic is the result of fewer vaccination campaigns than planned and a failure to achieve blanket coverage during home visits. This year officials hope to reach every child under 5 in six campaigns. Although Brundtland says that "we have the tools and the strategies to finish this job," WHO remains $275 million short of what it estimates is needed to eradicate the disease.
