Patna, (Bihar Times): Bihar’s health minister, Chandra Mohan Rai,  while talking to a section of media conceded that till the first week of December the state had witnessed 129 new cases of polio––which is more than double than last year’s figure of 61.

With so many days yet to go the figure is surely going to rise as a number of cases have come up in the past few days. However, unofficial sources put this year’s toll at over 150.

While earlier most of the new cases used to come from districts  bordering UP the recemt phenomenon suggests something else. In the first ten days of December 2007, around half a dozen new cases of polio have been detected from the districts bordering West Bengal, that is Kishanganj, Purnea and Araria.

The figure exposes the state’s failure in fighting the menace of polio notwithstanding the fact that half a dozen rounds of immunization drives as well as special immunization drives were carried out this year.

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