The total tally of polio cases in Pakistan reached to six, EOC
PESHAWAR
Two more cases of polio were reported from North Waziristan, a tribal district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), taking the total tally of Pakistan for the year to six.
According to the Emergency Operation Center (EOC) statement issued here on Saturday, a boy and girl aged 18-months from North Waziristan were left paralyzed by wild poliovirus.
The total tally of reported polio cases in the country jumped to six this year.
The Ministry of Health, the wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) was confirmed in the boy and girl both from Mir Ali on May 27 by the polio laboratory at the National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad, EOC stated.
“The girl had onset of paralysis on 10th May while the boy had onset of paralysis on 11th,” it added.
It may be worth mentioning here that after staying a polio-free country for almost 15 months, Pakistan reported its first two cases of the virus on April 22 and April 30, respectively. The victims, a 15-month-old boy and a two-year-old girl, belonged to the Mir Ali tehsil of North Waziristan.
On January 27, Pakistan had observed almost one year without the detection of a polio case.
The only infection in 2021 was reported from Balochistan while all other provinces and country capital remained polio free.
The NIH-Islamabad has yet again confirmed the detection of two Type-1 Wild Polioviruses (WPV1) from the stool specimens of an 18-month-old-girl and another 18-month-old-boy, both from Mir Ali Tehsil, North Waziristan.
It is to note here that all six cases of polio reported in Pakistan in 2022 detected from North Waziristan, one of the tribal districts of KP.
The statement issued by the EOC revealed that the preliminary reports suggest that both cases emerged in North Waziristan were due to parents’ refusal of polio drops to their children.
Following the emergence of fresh cases of polio virus in the country, Prime Minister Shebaz Sharif had directed the federal and provincial governments to launch a comprehensive polio drive.
The officials of the EOC said that the focus would be made in the ongoing anti-polio in the country to eradicate the disease and address the challenges of persistently missed children and fake marking.
