Government plans to wind down National Polio Surveillance Network centres in India

Government plans to phase out WHO-established National Polio Surveillance Network, sparking concerns among experts and staff.

The government has proposed to wind down, in phases, the World Health Organization (WHO)-established National Polio Surveillance Network (NPSN), currently a countrywide network of over 200 units. Experts in the field have commented that the move would be premature and ill-advised at this stage, with India’s neighbouring countries still harbouring cases of polio.

Staff at the NPSN centres have received a communication from the WHO’s representative in India, Roderico H. Ofrin, advising them of an upcoming transition initiated by the government. The transition involves a gradual drawdown of the NPSN units each year — from approximately 280 units in 2024-25 down to 190 in 2025-26, and further to 140 in 2026-27. This is also linked with a corresponding reduction in financial support from the government, according to the communique.

The process of transition will begin in June.

“We are not disbanding teams overnight or winding down the network haphazardly; rather, specific units will phase out at set intervals as government systems ramp up and absorb these functions,” Dr. Ofrin said. This will help us ensure that, at any given time, critical surveillance activities continue with minimal or no gaps, he said.

While he assured the staff of the NPSN that this would help retain critical surveillance activities, at some point, polio surveillance would be subsumed within the Integrated Diseases Surveillance Programme.

But the proposed winding down of a key unit, at a time when global resurgence of polio has been reported, has not gone down well, with either staffers or public health experts.

India was declared polio-free in 2014, after three years of no case caused by wild polio virus transmission. The gains came after a full-frontal attack launched on polio, through years of coordinated work and oral polio immunisation campaigns, with a number of organisations collaborating.