Polio scare: Nagaland health department debunks rumour

Eastern Mirror Desk

Dimapur, Oct. 5:  The state’s Health department has termed as false a message asking parents to refrain from administering polio dose to kids up to the age of five as ‘some virus has been found in them’.  According to a message that went viral on the internet, ‘oral polio vaccines were found to have been contaminated with the type-2 polio virus’ in Nagaland.

On Friday, the Nagaland Directorate of Health and Family Welfare issued a statement saying that the scare mongering had stated after some batches of oral polio vaccine manufactured by Ghaziabad-based Biomed Pvt. Ltd were found contaminated with polio type 2 virus — a strain which has been eradicated worldwide, including in India. However, it clarified that Nagaland did not receive any batch of the contaminated vaccine.

“Nagaland never received any of the contaminated vaccines and further audit of oral polio vaccine was conducted by DoHFW at all health facilities in Nagaland as a follow-up measure to confirm that no contaminated vaccines are being used or lying unused anywhere,” it stated.

The chief medical officer at District Hospital Dimapur, Vikato Kinimi told Eastern Mirror that “no health sector will compromise with a person’s health and whatever the department does will be for the good of the generation.” He also asked the people to trust the department.