2024 polio tally hits 50 with 2nd case from KP’s Tank: NEOC

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The National Emergency Operation Centre (NEOC) on Tuesday said that a second polio case was reported from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Tank district, bringing the year’s tally to 50.

Pakistan is one of the last two countries in the world, alongside Afghanistan, where polio remains endemic. Despite global efforts to eradicate the virus, challenges such as security issues, vaccine hesitancy, and misinformation have slowed progress.

In a statement issued today, the NEOC said the Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at Islamabad’s National Institutes of Health confirmed the detection of another wild poliovirus (WPV1) case in a girl from Tank district on Monday.

“Genetic sequencing of the virus isolated from collected samples indicates it is genetically linked to WPV1 detected in the same district in July,” the NEOC said.

“Tank is one of the polio-endemic districts of southern KP and has reported multiple positive environmental samples this year as well as two cases, indicating that poliovirus circulation remains a threat to children.”

The NEOC said that 24 cases have been reported from Balochistan, 13 from Sindh, 11 from KP and one each from Punjab and Islamabad so far for the year.

Last week, the year’s 49th case was reported from Balochistan’s Jaffarabad district in a 15-month-old male child.

Earlier this month, health officials insisted that unvaccinated children were hindering the progress of the government’s fight against polio in KP.

They told Dawn that in the last door-to-door anti-polio campaign from October 28 to November 3, the vaccinators missed only 1.5 per cent of the targeted children in the province due to parental refusal or the children’s unavailability at home.

The officials said of the total of 6.38 million targeted children in 30 districts, 78,355 missed polio vaccines due to their absence from home during the anti-polio teams’ visit, while 17,479 didn’t receive the vaccine due to refusal or reluctance of their parents.

They said that the numbers were a cause of concern as the polio eradication programme was meant to inoculate all eligible populations to eliminate the vaccine-preventable childhood ailment.