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On June 1st 2003
there was yet another round of the polio immunization campaign, with central
ministers, chief ministers, film stars all actively promoting it. These
campaigns, conducted in India at huge expense, since 1995, were supposed to have
made India polio free by 2000. In fact the opposite occurred — last year it
reached epidemic levels seeing a six-fold increase over the previous year. A top
functionary of the WHO & UNICEF said India reported 1,599 cases in 2002. (In
2001 it was 268 cases) The increase was 6-fold within a year. Last year in UP
1241 were crippled by polio. India had 85% of the polio cases in the world;
mainly in UP. Worst affected are UP & Bihar (86%). Other affected states are
Haryana, Gujarat, Rajasthan, and parts of West Bengal. Over 3,500 children in
the 0-18 age group have been found infected with the polio virus in Meerut
alone. The survey was conducted by the District Primary Education Department.
This in spite of the mind-boggling figures being spent on its eradication.
Besides, officials
manipulate the actual number of children participating in the polio drives. So,
for example, in West Bengal while the CPM Government claimed that 95% of the
children were involved in the immunization, the UNICEF found that the actual
involvement was barely 65%. This June 1 the CPM collaborated with the WHO and
the UNICEF to conduct the campaign.
Polio peaks in August
and Sept.
People’s March had
already cautioned the people years back that the polio drops administered in
most areas are likely to be ineffective as they are to be stored at minus 8
degrees centigrade. Besides polio drops have been banned in the West as it has
shown that in some cases it has actually induced polio. There, they use only the
injection, not the drops. Instead of popularizing the standard triple vaccine
given to children and promoting this in all areas, it is undertaking this huge
fraud on the Indian people. Immunization through the triple vaccine still
remains low. In UP only 50% of the children are taken for immunization at birth;
in Bihar it is 21%.
Even after umpteen
rounds of the pulse polio immunization (PPI) programme for over 8 years, why is
it that the incidence in 2002 not merely increased, but reached epidemic levels?
By their own claim, polio should have been eradicated from the country by 2000.
The pulse polio budget this year will be a huge Rs.600 crores; up from Rs.450
crores last year. Over the eight years roughly Rs.2,500 crores has been spent on
this PPI programme. This massive expenditure if it were diverted to malaria
or TB eradication would have been able to save thousands of lives. But they
continue to step up the expenditure on polio as it helps the West dump these
drops at huge cost to India. Besides eradication of polio will not affect the
sales of the pharmaceutical companies as there are no drugs for it; while if
malaria or TB are eradicated it would make a huge dent n the sales of these
companies. So while expenditure of social welfare is being drastically cut,
these extremely expensive quixotic schemes are basically being pushed by the US
medicine mafia.
The PPI is promoted
by the WHO, the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, UNICEF, and Rotary
International with the Indian govt only providing the infrastructure. While some
of the money is grants from these bodies; a large part is in loans, which have
to be repaid by the Indian government.
While on the one hand
the government is pushing these very expensive projects it is systematically
cutting expenditure on health, introducing user charges in free hospitals, and
allowing the rural health schemes (PACs) to collapse.
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