Gates visits frontline of war against polio

MICROSOFT billionaire Bill Gates yesterday travelled by boat to a remote village in eastern India to check on the progress of a government campaign to eradicate polio which he is helping to fund.

Mr Gates, whose Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has committed nearly $1 billion (673m) to health and development projects in India, met with health workers and discussed the strategy to fight polio with immunisation drives and an effective surveillance programme that identifies cases early.

He visited Guleria, a village nearly 140 miles east of Patna, the capital of Bihar state, one of only two Indian states where new cases of polio continue to be reported, according to Unicef. Uttar Pradesh is the other Indian state affected.

In 2002, India reported 1,613 polio cases – a number that has now come down to about 685 cases per year, a Unicef spokesman said.

Polio, which mostly strikes children under five, is carried in the faeces of the infected and often spread by contaminated water. It usually causes paralysis, muscular atrophy, deformity and occasionally death.

The incidence has dropped by more than 99 per cent since the World Health Organisation and partners launched an initiative to eradicate the disease in 1988 through vaccinations.

However, the number of cases – fewer than 2,000 annually – has remained at a virtual standstill since 2000. In addition to India, polio persists in a few countries, including Afghanistan, Angola, Chad, Nigeria, Pakistan and Sudan.

Every year, India mobilises more than two million health workers for an immunisation day, visiting more than 200million homes. They also visit train and bus stations and ferry terminals to immunise children who are on the move.