Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation today said it had ensured that the existing stock of trivalent oral polio vaccine was completely destroyed, as per the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines.
AMC had detected P2 vaccine virus from samples collected from sewerage lines in August last year, indicating that trivalent oral polio virus vaccines were still being used despite WHO guideline to withdraw them, said Amit Begda, superintendent of vaccines, AMC.
Some media reports said finding of P2 vaccine virus from samples collected from sewerage meant polio can reappear in the city, but the administration ruled out the possibility.
"In 2014, WHO certified India as polio-free country and after that it issued guidelines asking to stop administering trivalent (P1-P2-P3) oral polio virus vaccine. So this type of vaccine was withdrawn on April 25 last year," he said, adding that now children are administered bivalent (P1 and P3) virus vaccine.
"But during sewerage sample, we detected P2 type vaccine virus which meant that someone might have administered trivalent vaccine after it was withdrawn, or it might have been discarded causing its appearance in sewerage," he said.
"As a precautionary measure, we prepared a list of 5,300 sites (hospitals, dispensaries, etc.,) where polio vaccines are available, and verified that those possessing P2 (trivalent) virus vaccine destroy it and obtained certificates from them regarding the same," he said.
Begda added that the discovery of this type of polio virus is not a cause of alarm as polio paralysis is caused by wild virus and not vaccine virus which keep appearing in sewerage samples as they are created in the stomach of kids to whom polio vaccines are administered.
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