India records 53 cases of polio, fuelling fears of resurgence

"We have had 53 cases so far in India and this is the situation in the low incidence period before the onset of the monsoon season," said the senior health ministry official, who asked not to be unnamed.

He was referring to the annual rains that lash the country between June and September.

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If this trend continued, he said: "We could have a major outbreak of polio on our hands."

India accounted for 83 percent of the world's new polio cases in 2002 with 1,600 cases recorded that year.

Polio, largely eliminated in most of the world, still exists in Nigeria, India, Pakistan and

Afghanistan among other countries with 1,900 cases reported last year, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative spearheaded by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

In India, the number of cases was brought down to 66 in 2005, according to WHO figures, thanks to television and print campaigns featuring film stars.

But persistent recurrence of the disease in two states has resulted in India overshooting deadlines it has set for itself to achieve zero polio levels. The latest deadline missed was January 2005.

The federal health ministry yesterday said the northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were not doing enough to ensure the elimination of polio.

"Of the 53 cases, 22 are from (Uttar Pradesh's western) Moradabad district," the health ministry official said.

"The state government keeps changing district officials. What we need is stability for immunisation programmes to be effective. We need the best and most effective people to handle immunisation programmes," it said.

"If not, India will continue to spend 225 million dollars to 250 million dollars each year in containing the virus and this is not a small sum."