National Polio Section

National Polio Laboratory was established in this Institute with the help of WHO in the year 1997. The laboratory started functioning from March 1997. At the outset a virology and tissue culture section was set up and subsequently the laboratory became fully functional from February 1998. This laboratory is an important arm of Polio surveillance in East and North East India. This laboratory receives stool samples of AFP cases from Eastern Region of India and bears about 25% burden of the whole country. Our laboratory serves the Eastern Region of India, which includes, West Bengal, some parts of Bihar, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Manipur, Orissa, Nagaland, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Mizoram, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh.  From December 2011 Laboratory had started the isolation of polio virus from sewage water as a part of Environmental Surveillance and ITD by PCR.