Lucknow, Sept 11 (ZEENEWS.COM) India is among the countries with the highest number of polio cases and it is suspected that Indians travelling abroad are spreading the disease, a senior UNICEF official said on Sunday.

"Investigation of strains of the polio virus and their genetic sequencing carried out in the African countries of Congo and Mozambique has revealed that they are of Indian origin," Buren Bayar, the UNICEF polio coordinator for Uttar Pradesh.

About 280 cases have been reported in the country this year, with Uttar Pradesh leading the list with 254. The state had reported only 29 cases last year.

"It may be possible that people going for Haj pilgrimage from the country could have transmitted the polio virus to people of other countries," Bayar said told media persons here.

Noting that India as a whole was not responsible for the spread of the disease in other parts of the world, Bayar put said Uttar Pradesh was largely responsible for this trend.

"The state of Uttar Pradesh specifically is turning out to be the exporter of the disease," he said adding cases of polio reported in Bangladesh were also of Indian origin.

Refuting the Uttar Pradesh government`s argument that vaccination was not an effective method to control polio, he said, "The vaccines are safe. They were tested in May and June this year at Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh and were found to be safe and effective."

Bayar was, however, optimistic about the eradication of polio from the country but stressed the need to reach out to every child. "When Bangladesh can do it, why can`t India?" he asked.

Bayar said though the authorities were getting the cooperation of every section of society in the drive to eradicate polio, officials still faced "some resistance from the Muslim community".

Attributing the sudden spurt of polio cases in Uttar Pradesh to children being missed out during vaccination drives, he said, "We could be missing out children, especially in the sensitive Moradabad district."

Another reason could be the break in the cycle of administering polio drops, he said, adding the slogan "Har bachhe ko har bar" (every time to every child) was of utmost importance. He said this cycle must not be broken.

Criticising the state administration for the "extremely poor shape" of its immunisation programme with a reach of only 23 per cent, Bayar said, "There does not exist any medical services in some areas in Moradabad, which has reported the highest number of polio cases, nor is there any routine immunisation programme."

This, coupled with poor sanitation in the affected areas, leads to lower immunity level among children and makes them more susceptible to the disease, he said.

"In Moradabad, we found a very high level, about 60 to 70 per cent, of non-polio entero viruses among children, which hampered the working of the polio drops," he noted.

The non-polio entero viruses, which are in the stomach, do not allow polio vaccines to be effective and there was "no space left" for vaccines in such cases, he said.

Of the 254 polio cases in Uttar Pradesh, five were found to of the Type-III polio virus, which requires a different vaccine.

The remaining cases were of the Type-I polio virus, which could be dealt with by the current polio vaccination campaign, Bayar said.

Polio cases were reported in as many as nine divisions, including Moradabad, Agra, Meerut, Saharanpur, Lucknow and Bareilly.

Moradabad was the worst affected with 56 cases, followed by Budaon (21), Muzaffarnagar (21), Meerut (20), J P Nagar (19), Rampur (17), Bijnore (17), Bareilly (12), Ghaziabad (9) and Lucknow (four).

The Uttar Pradesh government has sought to question the efficacy of polio vaccines and said the vaccine would be tested before being administered to children.

Bayar said a special drive will be undertaken in October to administer the "monovalent polio vaccine" to Type-III cases. Another round of pulse polio campaign was conducted in the state today.

Bayar said plans had been put in place to tackle the disease with the introduction of burst doses of polio vaccines.

The burst doses, known as oral polio vaccine, are given to children within 72 hours of their birth to compete with non-polio entero viruses, he said.