Mozambique confirms first wild poliovirus case in 30 years.

• Mozambique has identified its first case of wild poliovirus  Type 1 this week after a child contracted the disease. It is the country’s first such case since 1992 and the second imported case of wild poliovirus in Southern Africa this year.

When a country is declared polio free ?

• There are three variants of the poliovirus, numbered 1 to 3.For a country to be declared polio-free, the wild transmission of all three kinds has to be stopped. For eradication, cases of both wild and vaccine-derived polio infection have to be reduced to zero.

Efforts by India in this regard:

• India was declared polio-free in January 2014, after three years of zero cases.
• Under  the pulse polio programme, all states and Union Territories have developed Rapid Response Teams (RRT) to respond to any polio outbreak in the country.
• In 2014, the government made the Oral Polio Vaccination (OPV) mandatory for those travelling between India and polio-affected countries, such as Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Syria and Cameroon.