Polio in Pakistan prompts India to implement border crossing vaccination campaign

Officials in Pakistan on Monday "announced targeted, three-day anti-polio campaigns in affected areas, which include Karachi and districts in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas," the Wall Street Journal's "India Real Time" blog reports. According to the Global Eradication Initiative, led by the WHO, 84 cases of type 1 polio have been reported in Pakistan so far this year, nearly twice as many cases as the country had recorded by this time last year, according to the blog.

The "news raised alarms in India, where authorities announced plans to vaccinate all children under the age of five crossing the Wagha border from Pakistan," the blog states. "Until recently India had one of the world's worst rates of polio infection," but "thanks to mass vaccination campaigns, the country has made significant progress against polio," the blog notes, adding that because of this success, "preventing the virus from re-entering the country has become a new focus of public policy" (Stancati, 9/20).