ASSAM STATE HAJ COMMITTEE, a statutory body under Assam Government ordered all intending Haj pilgrims to take Polio oral dose and vaccine before they apply for a visa to Saudi Arabia.

 “This is mandatory. Every one who keeps an intension to visit the country to perform Haj must take advance doses without fail,” says Executive officer and secretary of State Haj Committee Md. Akmal Hussain.

 Husain urged all intending pilgrims to contact local joint director of Health Services for their oral dose. “The Health Department arranged a special drive for Haj pilgrims in all districts to provide polio doses. All joint directors have been setting up districts health centers for this purpose. We cordially request every one to consume polio dose on the days” Hussain said.

 According to a press statement released by state Haj committee, the Government of Saudi Arabia has made it mandatory to obtain medical certificate of Polio vaccination for all pilgrims. Without it no visa will be issued to intending Haj pilgrims for Haj-2007.

 The Haj pilgrims of Kamrup and Meghalaya consumed polio doses at Haji Mussafirkhana in Guwahati at 11 and 12 September. Haj committee also requested pilgrims to submit their polio vaccination Health certificate to the authorized agents of Haj committee to for due sanction of their visas.

 Assam is considered with a few other state of India, as a polio vulnerable state with a good number of detection in regular intervals.

Roughly 50 lakh children in each phase were consumed polio immunization doses in Assam in a series of three. Acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) surveillance programme was introduced in Assam in January 1998. Later on several special series were carried out to stop the outbreak, but results yet to come. 

Since the polio eradication campaigns going on, four polio virus patients were detected in Assam, which even reportedly delayed worldwide polio eradication programme under taken by UN and pressed to run a special eradication drive in the state and some parts of Bangladesh, which borders polio effected zone in Barak Valley.

World Health Organisation (WHO) confirmed AFP detection on a four-and-a-half year-old girl living at Jhum Basti village of Badarpur town, in Karimganj district, in November 2006. It was first after a short break of three years. Few days later another polio case was detected again in Barak Valley. It was again a four-year-old boy.

Altogether 14 and 20 cases respectively of AFP were detected in the Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi districts in Barak Valley in 2003 and 2004. The last case of wild polio in the state was detected on 28 June 2003, in Goalpara district. In 2001 a P1 wild poliovirus was detected in Mangaldoi.

Thankfully, not a single AFP case metamorphosed into poliomyelitis that can trigger an array of ailments like Gaillain Barre syndrome, transverse mellitus and encephalitis. Physicians observed that all victims were polio immunization drop out.

As many as 157,000 Indian Muslims would perform Haj this year and all arrangements will be made to ensure their hassle-free pilgrimage to the holy cities of Makkah and Madina in Saudi Arabia, Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahamed said in Hyderabad few days back. Addressing the annual All-India Haj conference, he said India would send the second largest contingent of Haj pilgrims, the same number as last year.