A health worker administers a polio vaccine to a child at a neighbourhood of Peshawar, Pakistan. File
| Photo Credit: AP

“Pakistan has reported 39 polio cases this year, with two fresh cases of the crippling disease being detected in the Sindh province,” authorities said on Sunday (October 20, 2024.)

“The latest cases were confirmed on Saturday (October 19, 2024) in the Sanghar and Mirpurkhas districts of the province,” the Dawn newspaper reported.

Pakistan confirms 5th polio case of year 17 days after victim’s death

These come after four cases were reported a day earlier, jolting the country’s efforts to eradicate the poliovirus. According to the Regi­o­nal Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication in Islamabad, the newest victims are a girl and a boy.

“These are the first polio cases from Mirpur­khas and Sanghar this year,” the report quoted an official as saying. “The prevalence of the virus had already been confirmed in the two neighbouring districts following multiple environmental samples testing positive for WPV1 since April,” the official added.

In ten months of the year, Pakistan has reported 39 cases of poliovirus, of which 20 were reported from Bal­o­c­h­istan, 12 from Sindh, five from Khyber Pakhtun­khwa and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.

Prime Minister’s Focal Person for Polio Eradication Ayesha Raza Farooq acknowledged the spread of the virus across the country but noted that a strategy has been developed to eradicate the crippling disease by June 2025.

“The Pakistan Polio Programme has planned a new nationwide vaccination campaign from October 28 to immunise more than 45 million children under the age of five,” the report said.

“Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries in the world where polio remains endemic,” according to the World Health Organization.

Islamabad:

Pakistan reported another case of poliovirus after a child was paralysed in the Sindh province, increasing the country’s total tally to 16 in 2024, an official told the media on Friday.

An official from the Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Islamabad said that the wild Poliovirus type-1 (WPV1) was confirmed in a 29-month-old girl from Hyderabad district of the province, Xinhua news agency reported.

According to the official, poliovirus traces have been reported in 62 districts of the South Asian country so far this year, a significant increase from 28 districts last year.

“This is the first polio case from Hyderabad and the third from Sindh, and the 16th case in Pakistan this year,” said the NIH official, adding that 12 cases were reported from the southwestern Balochistan province, three from Sindh, and one from the eastern Punjab province.

Prime Minister’s Focal Person for Polio Eradication Ayesha Raza Farooq said, “The latest case is a clear reminder that until we eradicate this virus from our country, no child anywhere is safe from its devastating effects.”

She added that WPV1 was consistently being reported in sewage samples of Hyderabad for the last four months, reiterating the continued risk of polio circulating anywhere in the country.

“We are operating on an emergency footing in all provinces given the intensity of the outbreak and extent of virus spread. The polio program has been implementing a comprehensive roadmap to interrupt virus transmission, beginning with an extensive, large-scale polio vaccination campaign from September 9,” she said.

Meanwhile, Muhammad Anwar-ul-Haq, coordinator of the National Emergency Operations Centre for Polio Eradication, said a thorough investigation was being conducted to identify the origins of the virus and immunisation of children.

“Poliovirus has been circulating in adjacent districts of Karachi and Hyderabad for several months,” he said.

“Every child’s wellbeing is important to us, and we will be launching a vaccination campaign in all affected districts from September 9 to boost children’s immunity.”

Polio has been eliminated in developed nations but persists in parts of India, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Many Pakistanis, particularly those residing in the conservative tribal areas, consider polio vaccination a Western campaign aimed at sterilising the country’s population. In 2012, the local Taliban ordered a ban on immunisation against polio in some tribal districts.

Nearly a dozen policemen have been killed this year while on security duty during vaccination campaigns which are frequently targeted by operatives.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)