Journalist Helen Branswell recalls her 2011 trip to India, where she documented the efforts of health care workers to find and vaccinate the country's many children against polio, in the following slide show. Unfortunately, in rare cases the vaccine actually causes polio. Read her in-depth report on the tricky transition to a different, safer polio vaccine in the (hopefully) final stages of the global eradication program here.

4 Comments

1. 1. Elegia 03:01 PM 4/16/12

   How is it that -- decades after polio was wiped out in America -- there are still places where the disease is endemic? I remember shots when I was a little girl and, later, eating a series of sugar cubes (in that order, so it's odd that there weren't MORE shots, since apparently the oral vaccine, which is not an inactivated virus, can re-establish the virus in the population).
   
   Of course, this was in a period where money was available for public health initiatives. Nonetheless, it is shocking that, in a prosperous country like India, there are still children suffering and being crippled by the polio virus.
   
   I blame it on the wealth gap. India IS prosperous, but the poorest of the poor there are as poor as anywhere in the world. And the caste system just will not die.
   
   Gandhi said that the seven dangers to human virtue were:
   
   1: Wealth without work
   2: Pleasure without conscience
   3: Knowledge without character
   4: Business without ethics
   5: Science without humanity
   6: Religion without sacrifice
   7: Politics without principle
   
   How many times must we be reminded that we are sharing the planet with nearly seven billion people and the death of every one diminishes each of us.
   
   "Ask not for whom the bell tolls.
   It tolls for thee."

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2. 2. ErnestPayne 04:23 PM 4/16/12

   Smallpox and polio were endemic in huge areas of the world beyond the reach of "modern medicine". It will be a huge advance if India is finally certified as being polio free. I can remember when we first got the needles for a polio vaccine. My parents thought it was a medical miracle (my grade 8 teacher had survived a mild case in his youth). The biggest kid in the class was the first to get the needle and he passed out. It did nothing to inspire confidence in the rest of the class. Congratulations to all those involved in eradicating this scourge.

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3. 3. Christine Gorman in reply to Elegia 03:39 PM 4/17/12

   I agree the wealth gap plays a role in the prevention of polio, as well as other diseases that disproportionately tend to affect the poor (tuberculosis, AIDS, respiratory infections, etc). But there are also cultural, social and educational issues as well. That's why it is so impressive that India has kept the lid on polio for the past year despite extreme poverty. They have proven--as have a few other countries--that we do not have to equate poverty with ill health.

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4. 4. Christine Gorman in reply to ErnestPayne 03:40 PM 4/17/12

   RE: "The biggest kid in the class was the first to get the needle and he passed out."
   
   No doubt another reason why the oral vaccine was so quickly adopted by so many.

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