Two cases of polio virus emerged on Thursday, one from the financial hub of the country and the other from North Waziristan.
According to the spokesman for the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) for polio eradication and immunisation, the affected child in Karachi – Abdul Nasir – is six months old and belongs to Gulshan-e-Iqbal’s UC-12. According to the father and grandmother, the child had never been administered anti-polio drops and whenever teams came to give polio drops, the family concealed the child’s presence.
According to the spokesman, Pakistan has 17 cases of polio registered this year, and it is feared the number will rise. This year, two polio cases have been reported from Karachi so far, while the third one was from Larkana.
Separately, a polio case surfaced in North Waziristan on Thursday, as a minor girl was found affected by the virus.
According to details, blood samples of ailing three-year-old girl hailing from village Zairkai, Mir Ali area of North Waziristan, were sent to the National Institute of Health Islamabad, which came positive. Along with Afghanistan and Nigeria, Pakistan is one of the only three countries where complete polio eradication has not yet been achieved.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), polio has been all but wiped out across the world following a sustained vaccination campaign, with only 22 cases reported in 2017 against more than 350,000 in 1988. There is no known cure, but the disease can be prevented if children are given multiple treatments with the polio vaccine, the WHO says.