NPR series on polio examines efforts to fight disease in India

In its ongoing series examining efforts to eradicate polio, NPR's "All Things Considered" on Thursday examined India's continuing efforts to stamp out the disease, noting the country "marked a milestone when the World Health Organization struck it from the list of polio-endemic countries in February after no new cases were reported for more than a year." The news service writes, "During national campaigns, which occur twice a year, two million volunteers fan out to India's train stations, bus depots, temples, churches and mosques, armed with vials of polio vaccine." NPR adds, "India has 175 million children aged five and younger, and all of them are tiny targets in this massive national immunization project that, since January 2011, has made India free of a disease that has afflicted it for millennia." The news service notes the country "must remain polio-free for three years before the WHO will certify that India has eradicated polio" (McCarthy, 10/18).