A recent report published in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics (IJME) explains that, clinically, NPAFP is indistinguishable from polio paralysis. But according to the Office of Medical & Scientific Justice (OMSJ), NPAFP is twice as deadly as polio paralysis, and yet was not even an issue in India prior to the rollout of the massive polio vaccine campaigns.
Similarly, cases of vaccine-associated polio paralysis (VAPP), a condition in which paralytic symptoms similar or identical to those caused by wild-type polio manifest themselves following the administration of polio vaccines, are also on the rise. Not only are the paralysis symptoms associated with NPAFP and VAPP typically far worse than those brought about by wild-type polio, but they can also accompany other negative side effects including neurological damage.
Far from being a success, in other words, India's polio vaccine campaign appears to have induced a new epidemic of a much worse type of polio-related paralysis that is even more deadly than the first one. And based on the figures, overall rates of NPAFP in particular are now 12 times higher in India following the polio vaccine campaigns, with some areas of the country reporting rates as elevated as 35 times higher.