[SaneVax: Do the 47,500 new cases of acute flaccid paralysis in India mean they traded polio eradication for a disease with twice the risk of death? Is it coincidence these new cases of AFP correlate closely to the number of oral polio vaccine doses administered?]
“Polio drops but leaves a deadly new trail,” by Shonali Ghosal for The Tehelka.
PARALYSIS IS the first sign of trouble. As paralysis threatened 18-month-old Sumi Naskar’s tiny body, it also threatened to end India’s polio-free run. This, after we celebrated with great pomp and show, on 12 January 2012, India’s first polio-free year.
Sumi had developed Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP), more simply put: signs of floppiness, weakness or paralysis but who’s to say that was because of polio? The procedural stool exam showed that she had tested negative for the Wild Polio Virus (WPV). The dream run continues.
Or does it?
What happened to Sumi if it wasn’t polio? She then fell into the category of Non-Polio Acute Flaccid Paralysis (NPAFP). According to an article published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, there seems to be an epidemic of flaccid paralysis. But polio is just one of the several causes of AFP, as clarified by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MHFW). Either way, residual paralysis may ensue.
Read the entire article here.
Leave a Reply