NEW DELHI, January 25: Visiting health workers from three East African countries have criticised the polio immunisation programme in India for neglecting routine immunisation.``We were told that the last survey of the population, that shows any record of routine immunisation of children against polio at birth, was done in 1993,'' the immunisation manager from Zimbabwe, Adelaide Shearley, told reporters at a press conference on Monday.While repeated doses of the polio vaccine are being given to children aged below six years on National Immunisation Days twice a year under the Pulse Polio Programme since 1995 in India, all newborn children have been receiving routine immunisation since 1981 all over the world.Shearley, who was here with representatives of the immunisation programmes of Zambia and Malawi to study the polio immunisation programme in India as part of Rotary's Group Study Exchange programme, said that there is no way to find out if every newborn child in India gets two drops of the vaccine as no surveys are being done. ``Even if surveys are done now there would not be many accurate responses as there is no system of families keeping a child health card. Hence the surveyor will have to depend on the mother's memory,'' she said.The team hopes to raise the point at a meeting with the immunisation manager for India, Shobhan Sarkar, during their visit.F.E.Dimmock of Zambia said that in the matter of surveillance of cases of polio, India was equipped with nine laboratories, whereas Zambia and Malawi were dependent on the single laboratory in Zimbabwe. While all three nations have eradicated polio and national immunisation days are no longer being observed there, they are concentrating on routine immuninsation of all newborn babies. They are also sharpening their network to detect cases of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) which is caused by the polio virus.The team, led by Donald Macdonald of Zinmbabwe, which also includes Ramsay Chaunga of Malawi, were all praise for the enthusiasm of mothers who they met at polio booths in Chennai on Immunisation Day last week.They also said that though their countries had eradicated polio, the reporting of AFP cases is an area of weakness as the private sector does not cooperate. ``We are constantly threatened by the polio virus as neighbours like Congo, Tanzania and Angola continue to have polio. We marry across borders and have soldiers fighting in Congo,'' Dimmock said. While Zimbabwe had its last polio case in 1989 and Malawi has been polio-free since 1992, the last case in Zambia was reported in 1996.
