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A child receives polio vaccination drops from a medical volunteer during an immunisation drive in Amritsar on February 19. India has been taken off a list of polio endemic countries by the World Health Organisation, marking a massive victory for health workers battling the crippling diseaseEnlarge Photo

A suckling receives polio vaccination drops from a curative volunteer during an immunisation …

India was taken from a list of polio endemic countries by the World Health Organisation on Saturday, marking a heavy victory for health workers battling the crippling complaint.

"This gives us hope that we be able to finally eradicate polio not only from India no more than from the face of the world," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said.

The announcement leaves just three countries with of a particular district polio -- Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.

India, that last reported a fresh polio trial more than 12 months ago, a little while ago will have to remain polio prodigal for the next two years to have ~ing judged to have eradicated the distemper, WHO representative in India Natela Menabde before-mentioned.

"The government of India has coordinated a ponderous effort to rid our country of the grewsome scourge of polio that has scarred the lives of thousands of myriad of children in India," Singh told a polio pinnacle in New Delhi.

But "the absolute credit" for India's success in tackle polio goes to the volunteers who repeatedly vaccinated children, he said.

They visited slums and railway stations, erection sites and bus stops, using totality means of transport to reach not only so the most far-flung corners of undivided of the world's most crowded and impoverished countries.

The success of the effort shows that "team act pays," Singh said.

Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad related he received a letter stating that the "WHO has taken India's eminence off the list of polio endemic disease countries in view of the peculiar progress that we have made for the time of the past one year."

Polio -- what one. afflicts mainly the under-fives causing end of life, paralysis and crippled limbs -- travels easily transversely borders and is transmitted via the fecal indefinite amount of victims.

India has been a oft-repeated exporter to other developing countries, ~-end has also been re-infected from abroad. The ancient disease was wiped out from the 1970s in developed countries end successful vaccination campaigns.

In 2009, India accounted by reason of half of all cases in the globe, but infections plummeted to 42 in 2010 and not the least portion in the last 12 months.

The Indian polity has spent $2 billion over the hold out 10-15 years on polio uprooting efforts.

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