Polio's moving target
Last March, photographer Allison Kwesell visited Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh, one of two states in India where the poliovirus maintains its grip. (The other is Bihar.) She documented a weeklong national immunization campaign during which 13.7 million children under the age of five received drops of the polio vaccine.
Many of those children won’t be safe from the disease, however, until they receive several vaccinations. Poor sanitation – which exposes children to polio in the first place – leads to diarrhea, which makes it hard for young bodies to hang on to the vaccine long enough to build immunity.
Going door to door is a time-tested method of carrying out immunization campaigns, but Uttar Pradesh is home to many migrant workers and members of nomadic tribes, who may have more than one place of residence – or none at all. Among them is eight-year-old Nikin Kumar (previous pages), who contributes to his family’s income by moving 1,000 bricks a day, eight months a year, at a brickworks in Moradabad. His family lives in a cramped settlement of one-room shelters, built of bricks the workers make by hand, but from June to September – the monsoon season – they return to their own village. During each National Immunization Day (NID), polio workers blanket the state, searching for every family – whether they are at home, on the road, or living in temporary quarters.
Kwesell has worked as a photojournalist in China, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. She met Jim Roxlo, of the Rotary Club of North River (Chattanooga), Tennessee, USA, when she volunteered with the Children’s Nutrition Program of Haiti. Her trip to India was organized by Roxlo’s club and the office of the India PolioPlus Committee.
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