ISLAMABAD: The total number of polio cases in Pakistan this year has risen to 52, double the number reported in the past two years, following the confirmation of two new cases in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Pakistan’s polio eradication programme on Friday said that two more case of the poliovirus has been reported from Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
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 three-year-old boy and a one-and-a-half-year-old girl from Dera Ismail Khan district.
The Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme said that genetic sequencing of the samples collected from the children is underway.
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 are the only two remaining polio endemic countries in the world. Afghanistan has far reported 18 cases this year, according to the WHO.
Data from the Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme shows that so far this year, 24 cases have been reported in Balochistan, 13 each in Sindh, 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.
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.
