Approximately 3,000 parents have been reported to have refused polio vaccination so far in Balochistan.
July 7 marked the conclusion of a seven-day polio prevention campaign. It has been claimed that 98 per cent of the target for the anti-polio campaign has been achieved in 16 districts.
The campaign aimed to vaccinate more than 951,000 children against polio.
According to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) police, a police personnel deployed on the security of Lot Quality Assurance Sampling (LQAS) of Polio team was martyred in Ragzai, South Waziristan, KPK.
LQAS is a global standard practice to check the efficacy of any immunization campaign conducted in the region. Since Polio campaigns are regularly implemented across the country, LQAS procedure is being conducted as well to check the quality of polio vaccination campaigns.
Rahemullah Mehsud was surrounded by militants when they asked him to give up and lay down his weapons, however the brave son of the soil refused to surrender and said people of Waziristan would remember him as a coward if he did so and laid down his life in the line of duty. The story has been posted on X by journalist Iftikhar Firdous.
According to KPK Police, during the last year, the number of martyred police personnel was 137 – a grim reminder of the country’s worsening security situation.
A bomb targeting a polio protection team in Bajaur, northwestern Pakistan, on Monday killed at least five police officers, officials said.
“A police truck transporting around 25 policemen for anti-polio campaign duties was targeted by an IED (improvised explosive device),” Anwar ul Haq, a senior government official in Bajaur district, told AFP.
He said at least five police officers were killed and at least 20 others were wounded.
Kashif Zulfiqar, a senior police officer in the district, confirmed the death toll.
The attack happened in Mamund in Bajaur district, on the border with Afghanistan, in an area where militancy has been rising since the Taliban took control of Kabul in 2021.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack but Islamist militants, including the Pakistan Taliban, have killed scores of polio vaccination workers and their security escorts in the past.
October 23 marks the date when the world celebrates World Polio Day. Unfortunately, Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries which have not been able to get rid of the virus completely.
This year, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative has pledged to “Make Polio History”.
Sadly, the news of sewer samples being found in different cities of the world keep surfacing more often than usual. Statistics reveal that a total of four cases have been reported in the year 2023 while 11 new samples have been detected in seven new cities of Pakistan.
The most recent is the discovery of a two-year-old infected with the virus in the union council of Gujro, North-East Karachi. It’s the first case reported in the city since June this year. Before that, a case was confirmed in Landhi.
Head of the Polio Eradication Programme in Punjab, Khizer Afzaal, on Monday pronounced Punjab-the country’s biggest province-to be polio-free for the last three years. He simultaneously cautioned about the looming threat that is evident after the identification of genomic samples of virus in different districts of Rawalpindi and Lahore.
It is important to understand that along with immunisation, sanitation is equally a part of thwarting the paralysis of children from polio. Experts have stressed the absolute need of a proper sewage system which serves as the breeding ground of this virus and impair the kids for life.
Aggressive measures, awareness campaigns and prioritisation can clear out the black spot from Pakistan’s name.
More evidence of poliovirus was found in five samples in Peshawar and Karachi and so, the chances of a poliovirus outbreak in the country have now increased.
According to the Ministry of Health, polio virus found in the five samples in Karachi are genetically linked to the virus in Afghanistan. Whereas, the genetic testing of the virus found in the positive sample from Peshawar is ongoing.
Previously, five Union Councils of Karachi have been declared at high risk of polio virus.Other places of detection include Hangu and Pishin.
Earlier this week, Egyptian authorities made it mandatory for travellers from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other countries to provide a polio vaccination certificate.“
As informed by the Egyptian Authorities, passengers travelling to Egypt from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Malawi, Mozambique and Congo are requested to provide an international certificate of vaccination specifically polio vaccine, OPV or IPV (both are acceptable),” Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said in an advisory on its website on Monday.
Additionally, last month, the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee as well as the World Health Organisation (WHO) expressed concerns over Pakistan’s efforts in eliminating polio virus.
Once again, the presence of polio virus has been confirmed in samples collected from different cities across Pakistan.
According to officials, two samples from Hangu city of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and one from Karachi have tested positive for polio.
These samples were taken from Hangu Civil Hospital and Jani Chowk.
Reportedly, the polio virus found in Hangu is genetically similar to the virus found in Rawalpindi.
Similarly, other samples were taken from the Kemari area of Karachi.
Overall, 27 samples in Pakistan have tested positive for polio virus so far.
A seven-day anti-polio campaign in Karachi will start from October 2.
More than 2.6 lakh children will get the vaccine, while children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years will also be given vitamin A.
During the anti-polio campaign, 3,500 personnel will be on duty.
Almost 62 thousand parents refused to vaccinate their children during the nationwide polio vaccination campaign carried out from January 2 to 29, ARY has reported.
The anti-polio campaign was held in three phases during the month of January, during which 62,411 parents refused to give their kids the polio vaccine.
According to sources, Sindh is home to the majority of the parents who chose not to give their children the polio vaccine. In Sindh, 37,008 parents declined to have their children receive the polio vaccine, while in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 20,305 parents did the same.
In addition, 36 parents in Punjab, 141 households in Islamabad, and 4,902 parents in Balochistan refused to give their children the polio vaccine.
The campaign was launched after sewage samples collected in January from Lahore revealed the presence of wild poliovirus.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where polio has not yet been eradicated. To formally eradicate the disease, a nation must be polio-free for three consecutive years. Nigeria was declared free from wild polio in August 2020.
A strain of wild poliovirus has been detected in an environmental sample in Lahore, Razya Khan has reported for Express Tribune.
The Pakistan Polio Laboratory at the National Institute of Health said in a statement on Tuesday that the virus discovered in Lahore’s Gulshan-e-Ravi had connections to a poliovirus discovered in Nangarhar, Afghanistan last November.
“While the isolation of the virus is a cause of concern, it is excellent to note that it was detected promptly. This timely detection of the virus in the environment is crucial to protecting children from being paralysed by the poliovirus,” said Federal Minister for Health Abdul Qadir Patel.
Up to 44 million children would be immunised across Pakistan as a result of anti-polio campaigns in 2023.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where polio has not yet been eradicated. To formally eradicate the disease, a nation must be polio-free for three consecutive years. Nigeria was declared free from wild polio in August 2020.
Up to 44 million children would be immunised across Pakistan as a result of anti-polio campaigns in 2023, ARY has reported.
The federal government has created a schedule for the campaign through to 2023.
Six campaigns will be carried out nationwide to eradicate the polio virus in the future year 2023, with the first one scheduled to begin in January.
The rest of the immunisation efforts will be held in March, May, July, October, and December.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where polio has not yet been eradicated. To formally eradicate the disease, a nation must be polio-free for three consecutive years. Nigeria was declared free from wild polio in August 2020.
The United Nations has condemned the attack on a police van guarding polio workers in Dera Ismail Khan in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
“It’s not the first time that we’ve seen attacks on health workers; It’s not the first time we’ve seen attacks on people trying to do polio vaccination in Pakistan and other places in the world,” UN Secretary-General’s spokesman, Stephane Dujarric said.
He added, “Sometimes we’re faced with a situation where you really run out of words, but it is despicable to target and attack people who are going out in communities in extremely challenging circumstances, trying to protect the lives of infants and babies from a preventable disease that is almost wiped out; except for a handful of countries, and that all too often is due to a security situation where people actively work against health workers.”
Terrorists opened fire on five police officers on Thursday who were guarding polio workers in Dera Ismail Khan, injuring all of them.
As per the details, the incident happened on Thursday afternoon. The policemen were shifted to a local hospital for treatment.