According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Pakistan’s tally of new polio cases reported on Wednesday in Tank, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has increased to 69 for last year.
It is one of the two countries-most of them-noted to be with Afghanistan, where polio is still endemic. It primarily affects children under five years of age, causing lifelong paralysis. Though countries globally are working to eradicate it from the globe, challenges still face progress such as security issues, vaccine hesitancy, and much misinformation.
This additional wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) case of 2024 for the country was confirmed by the Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health. It is reported that on January 7 another case was confirmed from Tank, and the number stood at five from that district this year.
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Pakistan recorded 69 cases relating to the re-appearance of WPV1 from last year; out of these, Balochistan accounted for 27 cases, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for 21, Sindh for 19, with one case from Punjab and another in Islamabad.
The paralyzing, incurable disease, polio, is a disease that must be prevented by multiple doses of oral polio vaccine and completion of routine vaccination schedules for all children under five to develop high immunity against it. The first campaign for the year would be meant for polio vaccination nationwide during the window of February 3-9, 2025. To protect children, it is vital that parents welcome vaccinators in their homes as they come for the immunization of children.
Earlier in the week, Afghanistan counted twenty-five polio cases in 2024, whereas this figure stands at sixty-eight in Pakistan, with several reports still pending. As per a senior official of the Polio Programme of Pakistan, the country makes it a point not just to be transparent, but also to have a far more effective reporting system compared to Afghanistan, as if to suggest that many cases might have gone unreported in the neighboring country.
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The Pakistan Polio Programme has organized a lot of mass vaccination drives every year wherein vaccines are brought directly to the doorstep of children. Such immunization also includes their Expanded Programme on Immunization and vaccines for children against 12 diseases offered for free to the public at health facilities.
A sub-national polio vaccination campaign throughout Punjab from December 16-22 covered Sindh, KP, AJK, GB, and Islamabad, vaccinating more than 42 million children.