No fresh cases of polio have been reported in India in the past year, but any celebration of that fact is premature. There are few guarantees that the disease is gone; several critical diseases, once near eradication, have come back with even greater virulence. Just this month, India was formally declared free of the avian influenza virus — and barely three days later, it resurfaced in Orissa. Several times earlier, the government mistakenly pronounced the “bird flu” virus gone. Consider also leprosy: in January 2006, the government claimed it was eliminated nationally, but World Health Organisation data still record India as having the world’s highest number of leprosy cases every year. Similarly, malaria was once more or less controlled. But it came back, and brought along with it several other forms of mosquito-borne diseases, such as dengue and chikungunya, earlier unheard-of.
The case of tuberculosis (TB) is even worse in some ways. Despite concerted efforts to tame it, the disease survived — and, disquietingly, has now assumed a form immune to well-known TB drugs. Polio, meanwhile, has been following a distinct four-year cycle of resurgence-and-respite since the late 1990s, with major outbreaks occurring in 1998, 2002 and 2006. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have remained hotbeds of this virus. Moreover, the disease is still prevalent in India’s neighbourhood – and even showing an alarming increase in Afghanistan and Pakistan – leaving India vulnerable. China, free of polio since 1999, recently witnessed an incursion of this virus from Pakistan.
The central problem is India’s failure to sustain its anti-disease campaigns. The National Malaria Eradication Programme, which had seen considerable success at one stage thanks to commitment and the availability of the cheap insecticide DDT, lost steam once the threat had abated. DDT, meanwhile, was banned without any effective low-cost alternative being made available. Indeed, on most public health issues, the constant vigilance vital for forestalling the disease outbreaks is often found wanting. Even simple disease prevention mechanisms, such as routine vaccination, have seldom been pursued with commitment. Until crucial investment on preventive healthcare goes up, India will not be able to convincingly control debilitating infectious diseases.
