JAIPUR: India is close to eradicating polio, a dreaded disease of the 20th century. "Only one polio case was found in 2011, which means it will soon be eradicated," Dr Samlee Plianbangchang, regional director, WHO South East Asia Region (SEAR) told TOI. This year, only one child -- a one-and-a-half-year old Muslim girl was detected with polio. She is a resident of Panchala Block in Howrah district of West Bengal. Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad expressed pleasure in announcing that polio will soon be eradicated from the country. He was in Jaipur for the 29th meeting of ministers of health of WHO South-East Asia Region on Tuesday. Azad said, "I am glad to share with you our achievement in controlling polio. We are now at the end of the peak season and have had just one case this year, as against 741 cases in 2009 and 42 cases in 2010." India has made a great progress in tackling polio transmission in the last couple of years. Programmes aimed to eradicate polio were launched and government officials administered polio drops to every child less than five years of age. He said, "Although this gives us a lot of hope, we will remain vigilant. We will not spare any effort to eradicate polio from the country." In Rajasthan, no new case of polio has been detected since 2009. The last case in the state was detected on November 27, 2009 in Bharatpur. Two more new cases of polio were detected in the same year. In 2010 and 2011, there was no fresh case of polio. Plianbangchang said, "A review of the current key health indicators provides evidence of significant progress in health development in SEAR, particularly the progress towards achievements of health-related MDGs. All countries have reached leprosy elimination targets. HIV and TB cases have reduced and we are close to achieve the goal of polio eradication." On immunization, he said," It is a most cost-effective public health intervention to prevent infectious diseases among children. Our region has a relatively low rate of routine immunization coverage when compared with those in other WHO regions. To protect our children, concerted action is required to intensify our efforts on routine immunization across the region."