Centre introduces bivalent vaccine to eradicate polio

The bivalent vaccine (bOPV) is being introduced in the country for the first time in Bihar from tomorrow which is National Immunization Day (NID) for pulse polio campaign. President Pratibha Devisingh Patil launched the NID by administering polio drops to ten babies at Rashtrapati Bhawan in Delhi today. 

Speaking on the occasion the Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad said that the bivalent vaccine will also be introduced in Uttar Pradesh from next round. About 25 lakh kids will get the new drops. Overall 170 million kids are likely to be immunized in this round of NID. 
 
 There are three strains of wild polio virus, viz P1, P2 & P3. Type 2 wild polio virus (P2) has been eliminated in the year 1999. Efforts are being made to eradicate P1 and P3 also. As P1 is the more virulent type of the two, the current strategy is to eliminate it first while keeping P3 under control. Once P1 is eradicated, efforts to eradicate P3 will be made. Initially trivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (which caters to all the three strains of wild polio virus) was used in the campaign. 

Subsequently, more efficacious monovalent vaccine was introduced in the programme to handle the type 1 and type3 wild polio virus. While the monovalent vaccine has been found to be effective in containing the transmission of P1, it has affected the control of transmission of P3 getting compromised. Recently a bivalent vaccine has been developed which will control P1 and P3 simultaneously.