Study Finds Polio Drive Counter-Productive

This article describes findings of a study conducted in two districts, categorised as high risk for polio, of Uttar Pradesh, India - Moradabad and J P Nagar - to understand the perceptions and likely determinants that facilitate or act as barriers in implementing new strategies for polio eradication. Examples of new strategies are accelerated delivery of monovalent polio vaccine type 1, use of inactivated polio vaccine (IPV), and provision of incentives.

The study, as stated here, found logistical problems in introducing IPV in the country's polio control programme. "The study said that even though some experts had lobbied for introduction of IPV, logistical difficulties and injection safety issues were raised strongly both by the providers and community stakeholders....Saying that fatigue among vaccinators was evident because of accelerated polio rounds, the study felt it could lead to increased resistance among communities against the vaccine.....The rationale of accelerated rounds was not clear to parents and the question ‘why only polio’ was uppermost in the minds of the community."

In addition, the study found no demand for individual cash incentives, but instead, a strong parent preference for effective primary healthcare services. Parents and vaccinators agreed, according to the article, that though material incentives like whistles or candies attracted children to polio vaccination booths, the benefits of these minor incentives were minimal.

Government response to the "vaccination fatigue" has been to increase the daily wage of vaccinators. However, the study suggests that the perception of groups resistant to vaccination procedures is that "the state is desperate to do anything to achieve 100% coverage, [and, therefore,] ‘it is the government’s need, not ours’."