Odisha issues OPV advisory for travellers

Bhubaneswar: Odisha government issued an advisory for international travellers visiting seven polio prone countries.

The seven countries were identified as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, Somalia, Kenya, Syria and Ethiopia, official sources said.

International travellers going and coming from these countries should receive a dose of oral polio vaccine (OPV) before travel and should ideally be taken at least four weeks before travel irrespective of age or previous vaccination status.

Each traveller would be issued a certificate of vaccination after administration of OPV in the attached format, which should be signed by the designated officer. The certificate will be valid for a period of one year from the date of vaccination, state Health secretary P K Mohapatra said.

Mohapatra, who issued letters to all district collectors, chief district medical officers among others, said the advisory was aimed at preventing import of polio virus to the state.

India has not reported any case of Wild Polio Virus since January 2011 and is likely to be certified polio free very soon by World Health Organisation. "However, the wild polio virus continues to circulate in the three endemic countries of Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan as well as some erstwhile polio free countries with recent importations of polio virus like Somalia, Kenya, Syria and Ethiopia," he said.

The government of India too has decided that travellers to or from the seven countries need to take OPV.