Centre to introduce bivalent oral polio vaccine

The bivalent vaccine tested on 1000 newborn children in Indore, Chennai and Pune has shown 90 percent efficiency so far.

BoPV to replace MoPV next year
Once given the drug controller general's nod, the government will replace its monovalent oral polio vaccines (MoPV) with a bivalent vaccine (BOPV) early next year.

Nearly 65 million children in the high risk states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh will be vaccinated with BoPV in every sub-national polio round (SNID) which are conducted seven times each year.

"The government will very soon introduce bivalent oral polio vaccine (BoPV) to attack the type 1 and type 3 viruses. It will help us to deal with the fresh outbreak of type 3 virus," Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said.

"Government is committed to wipe out polio from the country and in this national and international organizations, state governments and general public will have to work in a concerted manner," he added.

Type 1 polio virus causes paralysis in one out of every 200 children and is the most dangerous form of polio virus. On the other hand, Type 3 is less severe than Type 1 as it causes a paralytic condition in one out of 1000 children.

At present, monovalent oral polio vaccines-- MOPV1 and MOPV 3-- are used to protect against the P1 and P3 strains respectively.

Rising P3 cases
P1 virus is said to have caused 95 percent polio cases in the country until 2006. However, the number of cases arising due to P3 virus is also increasing.

According to a government release, so far 568 polio cases have been reported as compared to 559 last year.

Uttar Pradesh and Bihar continue to be the high risk areas, witnessing a sharp increase in the P3 cases.

However, the health advocates are hopeful that the introduction of bivalent vaccine is likely to improve the situation to a great extent.

More on Polio
Polio, also called poliomyelitis, is a contagious disease which causes muscle paralysis and can even result in death.

The polio virus is said to affect the nerves governing the muscles in the limbs and those necessary for breathing, causing respiratory difficulty and paralysis of the arms and legs.

There is no potential cure of this paralytic disease. Health experts suggest that children between the ages of 2 months and 5 years should be given regular inactivated polio vaccination in order to prevent the disease.