|
|
|
|
Web-only Exclusives November 30, 2000 From Our Correspondent: Hirohito and the War A conversation with biographer Herbert Bix From Our Correspondent: A Rough Road Ahead Bad news for the Philippines - and some others From Our Correspondent: Making Enemies Indonesia needs friends. So why is it picking fights? |
An Ounce of Prevention
Photographs by Marcus Oleniuk for Asiaweek
IN THE COURSE OF one day at half a million health centers across India, 120 million children up to 5 years old were rounded up -- whether they were willing or not -- and inoculated against polio. Each year, 10,000 Indian children contract the crippling disease. Nearly 10% of India's population is physically handicapped, and the major cause is the polio virus. It produces an infection that begins with fever and diarrhea. Within two to five weeks it reaches the spinal cord and begins killing nerve cells. The World Health Organization has the mandate to eradicate polio from the face of the earth by the year 2000. Its plan is to corner the virus in countries where it is still a killer and finish it off. India is a good starting point: it has 60% of the world's new cases. WHO supplied the medication, but it was up to Indian doctors, local officials and volunteers to see that it made its way from cold storage facilities spread across the country to cities, towns and villages.
 |
No excuses accepted
In Rajasthan, a child from the Garasia ethnic group cries as she gets droplets of the vaccine. Her reward was a cookie
For the program to be effective, all the children in a community must be inoculated on the same day, otherwise the virus can find refuge in the body of an untreated child. Officials are optimistic about hitting their target: last year, a similar program reached 90 million kids. Mobile teams began before dawn, in train stations and markets. In remote areas volunteers worked with local village heads who manned booths set up in every hamlet. If the youngsters were reluctant, they were chased, caught and medicated. The next step: a follow-up vaccination on January 18 that completes the treatment.
 |
 |
