PAIN Relief: India on Track to Be Declared Polio-Free Next Month
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=pain-relief-india-on-track
A boy in Firozabad, Uttar Pradesh, India, shows his finger, painted to indicate he has just been vaccinated. Financial support for work that included this photograph came from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting. Image: Helen Branswell
In the mid-2000s, when scientists questioned whether the campaign to rid the world of polio could succeed, skeptics pointed to a problem that some called PAIN.
That stood for Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Nigeriathe four countries that were stubbornly standing in the way of success. The four had never managed to stop the spread of polioviruses within their borders and continued to send viruses, like embers off a fire, to re-ignite outbreaks in places that had previously halted transmission.
Now it appears someone's going to need to craft a new mnemonic.
India, which once seemed likely to be the last country on Earth to rid itself of polio, appears to have succeeded ahead of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria in besting the crippling viruses. The last child paralyzed by polio in India got sick on January 13, 2011, and surveillance for wild polioviruses in sewage has not turned up the pathogen in more than a year.