-PTI The United Nations and leading world organizations celebrated India’s first polio free year and termed it as a major milestone in their fight against this dreaded disease. The World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan, termed it as the “greatest public health achievement” of India, the Bill Gates, of Bill and Milinda Gates Foundation described it as a major milestone in the global fight against polio. “This is a major milestone in...

“Only one third of the journey has been completed” The last case of wild polio virus reported in India was exactly one year ago, on January 13, when stool samples showed that 18-month-old Rukhsar Khatoon in West Bengal had polio. She has since recovered, but it is the progress of whittling down from the largest number of cases in the world to zero that is fascinating to public health experts globally. Clearly,...

While one year has passed without polio caused by natural poliovirus, we can claim complete eradication only after we ensure the absence of wild and vaccine polioviruses in the population. Today, India passes one whole year without polio caused by natural (wild) poliovirus — a major milestone towards polio eradication. This spells relief from an agonising decade of wild polioviruses refusing to surrender. Many experts believed that India posed the greatest...

India has not recorded a single case of polio in 12 months - the longest ever. However, the Indian strain of wild poliovirus imported by several other countries like Angola, Lebanon, Tajikistan, Bangladesh and Namibia has caused multiple outbreaks in the last decade. The strain crippling children in Congo- 92 cases in 2011 - also came from India. "India exported poliovirus to other countries in the past and is now at risk of...

Come February, milk sold in India will have to be tested for harmful bacteria like E Coli. According to the new food safety rules that come into effect six months from August, 2011, the Food Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has made it mandatory for milk manufacturers to test it for organisms such as E Coli, staphaureus and listeria monocytogenes before bringing it into the market. FSSAI CEO V N Gaur...