Polio Is Out of Sight in India, Not Out of Danger: Why Parents Must Keep Vaccinating Children

On World Polio Day, India's child specialists are repeating a message that can sound almost out of date: keep vaccinating. The country has achieved polio-free status, and few parents today remember the fear the disease once caused. The doctors speaking to ETV Bharat say that is exactly the risk.

Polio is caused by the poliovirus and is highly infectious. It mostly affects children under five, though anyone who is not properly vaccinated can catch it. It spreads mainly by the faecal-oral route, when contaminated hands, food or water carry the virus into the mouth. Many infected people have no symptoms or only a mild illness, but they can still pass the virus on.

In a small proportion of cases, the virus attacks the nervous system and causes acute flaccid paralysis. The paralysis is usually irreversible. It can affect the legs or, in severe cases, the muscles needed for breathing. Of those who develop paralytic polio, roughly 5 to 10 percent die when the breathing muscles are immobilised.

There is no cure that reverses the nerve damage behind the paralysis. Medical care and rehabilitation can help manage complications and support a person's functioning, but they cannot reliably restore lost nerve function. For that reason, the doctors stress prevention over treatment.

Dr. Avi Shah, a consultant paediatric orthopaedic surgeon at Narayana Health SRCC Children's Hospital in Mumbai, credits India's status to sustained vaccination, disease surveillance and the work of healthcare workers and communities. But viruses do not respect borders, he says. International travel and population movement can bring poliovirus into areas where transmission had been interrupted, and high vaccination coverage is what would protect communities if that happened.

Dr. (Maj) Rajesh Bhardwaj, an ENT and vaccination expert and founder of MedFirst ENT Centre, says the vaccines are safe and effective and have dramatically reduced the disease worldwide. India uses both the oral polio vaccine (OPV), given as drops, and the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV), given by injection, under national immunisation policy. The two work together: OPV builds immunity in the intestine, which helps reduce transmission, while IPV gives strong protection against paralytic disease.

Parents often ask why a child who has had the routine doses needs more drops in a Pulse Polio campaign. Dr. Sanjay Wazir, Medical Director for NCR Neonatology at Motherhood Hospitals, says the answer lies in protecting a community as well as an individual. Supplementary campaigns raise population immunity and reach children who may have missed routine doses, and repeated campaign doses are part of the strategy for interrupting transmission. He stresses that campaign doses supplement the routine schedule and do not replace it. Eligible children should receive them as health authorities instruct.

When coverage falls, gaps open. Children who have missed doses, and communities with reduced immunity, become more vulnerable if the virus is introduced. The experts argue that an absence of cases may show the strategy is working, not that it is no longer needed. Wazir adds that vaccination, surveillance and high community immunity must continue until polio is eradicated globally. Clean water, sanitation and handwashing matter too, but cannot replace vaccination.

The practical advice is simple: follow the routine schedule, take part in Pulse Polio campaigns, keep written or electronic vaccination records, ask a healthcare professional about a catch-up plan if a dose was missed, and rely on credible medical advice rather than rumours or unverified social media posts. Bhardwaj says continued immunisation is needed to protect future generations, because polio-free status does not end the responsibility.