Paralytic poliomyelitis (1989-1994): report from a sentinel center.

OBJECTIVE To study the trends of paralytic poliomyelitis in pre Pulse Polio Immunization period. SETTING Hospital based sentinel surveillance. METHODS Analysis of 6704 line-listed poliomyelitis cases from January 1989 to December 1994 attending the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. RESULTS 85% of all cases reported in Delhi were from this center. A decline in alternate year peaks was observed from 1621 cases in 1990 to 1062 cases in 1994. There was an increase in proportion of cases with poliomyelitis in fully vaccinated children from 14% to 22.9%. Polio type I virus was the commonest isolated virus in all the years except 1993, when type II was isolated in 38.7% of cases. CONCLUSION Despite improvement in immunization coverage, the study reveals that a large number of children (67.2%) who suffer from poliomyelitis are unvaccinated. This stresses need to intensify and sustain high level of immunization coverage with effective vaccine.