ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s polio eradication programme on Tuesday that a child in its northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province had been paralysed by poliovirus, bringing the total number of polio cases this year in the country to 50.
The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health in Islamabad has confirmed the detection of wild poliovirus (WPV1) in a 20-month-old girl from the Tank district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme said that this is the second polio case from Tank, with a genetic link established to a case from July in the same region.
The South Asian nation, with a population of over 240 million, reported only a single case of paralytic poliovirus infections in 2021, following a period of more than 15 months without any documented cases. However, the numbers have since risen again.
Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan, with at least 18 cases this year, according to WHO, are the only two countries where polio remains endemic.
Data from the Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme shows that so far this year, 24 cases have been reported in Balochistan, 13 in Sindh, 11 in KP, and one each in Punjab and the country’s capital, Islamabad.
In 2023, Pakistan had reported only six polio cases, 70 percent less than the total cases reported in 2022.
Here is the data on polio cases in the chart, categorized by region and year, from 2015 to 2024.
On November 8, the country’s polio programme reported the presence of Wild Poliovirus Type-1 (WPV1) in two previously unaffected districts—Bajaur and Gujrat—bringing the total number of infected districts to 72.
Malik Mukhtar Ahmed Bharath, coordinator to the prime minister on national health services, told Arab News in an interview that an estimated 500,000 Pakistani children missed polio vaccinations during the countrywide vaccination drive conducted from Oct. 28 to Nov. 3.
In a statement, the polio programme emphasised the importance of the oral polio vaccine, saying, “The vaccine is essential to protect children from disability caused by polio infection.”
It urged parents across the country to ensure that all children under five receive multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and that their routine vaccinations are up to date.
