Motihari, Sept. 19: The detection of P-1 virus in a two-year-old child of Baluaghat village under Dhaka bock has set off an alarm.

Doctors responsible before the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the health department to check the spread of polio virus in East Champaran are panicking.

A recent upsurge in Maoist activities is among the major causes behind the spurt in the polio virus in Nepal and some Indian villages close to the India-Nepal border in East Champaran and Sheohar districts.

Ramesh Sah (2) was diagnosed with P-1 virus during a camp organised by the district health society and WHO. “The P-1 virus in the infant was also confirmed during examination of the boy’s stool sample at Sanjay Gandhi Institute in Lucknow,” said civil surgeon Dr Kameshwar Mandal and the district immunisation officer Dr Sushil Kumar.

Citing the four cases of P-1 virus detected in some bordering Nepal villages close to Dhaka and Ghorasahan blocks, both the doctors said that residents of Indian villages were related with bordering Nepali villages due to marital relationships. Ramesh had visited to a relative’s place in Nepal recently, Dr Kameshwar Mandal revealed.

Both the doctors believed that increase in Maoist activities has affected the Pulse Polio programme in Nepal. For want of regular immunisation, the spread of polio could not be checked. “Malnutrition and careless discharge of stool were among the primary reasons for spread of polio,” said doctors. They were apprehensive regarding further spread of the virus among children.

The WHO team and the district health society were confident that the immunisation graph, which at present hovered around 52 to 53 per cent, would attain the cent per cent mark in future.

Speaking on Ramesh, the findings of whose stool have to be cross-checked by a laboratory in Mumbai, the doctors his case is curable as his resistance is good due to regular immunisation.