The Injectable Polio Vaccine (IPV) is more effective than the oral one, experts said here on Tuesday. They emphasised that though the IPV was expensive, it carries the inactive forms of all three strains – Type 1, 2 and 3 – of the polio virus, with no risk of virulence. But the oral polio vaccine (OPV) contains live but weakened form of virus which can give rise to occasional cases of polio. “IPV is much more effective than OPV in a country like India. Had we adopted IPV earlier, we could have banished polio years ago,” T Jacob John, chairman of the Child Health Foundation, said at the Ranbaxy Science Foundation’s 32nd Round Table Conference on “Lessons from the Success of Polio Elimination” here. Jacob said that though India has successfully combated the menace of polio using oral vaccines, it has to be kept in mind that only the wild polio viruses have been eliminated, while the vaccine-derived polio viruses still remain a threat.

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