Pakistan’s polio fight suffers a blow with 2 new cases reported in the south
Karachi, Pakistan – Pakistan has reported two new cases of polio in the southern Sindh province, health officials said an effort to eradicate paralyzing disease in children on Monday. This has been the total to 29 cases across the country since January, despite several vaccination readers.
The virus was detected in two young girls in the cities of Badin and Thista, according to a press release from the Pakistani polio eradication program.
Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan remain the only two countries where the transmission of wild polio has never been arrested, according to the World Health Organization. Some Pakistan parents still refuse to vaccinate their children, while others live in difficult to access areas, according to experts.
Meanwhile, health workers sometimes undergo deadly attacks when they try to reach households in former militant bastions in the northwest of the country. In February, armed men killed a police officer assigned to protect a vaccination team in Jamrud, a district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa bordering Afghanistan. Since the 1990s, more than 200 polio workers and the police assigned to protect them have been killed during attacks.
Authorities said nearly 21 million children under the age of five had been vaccinated during a campaign earlier this month. Another door to door to the national door should start on October 13, targeting 45 million children.
Polio is a very infectious and incurable disease that can cause life paralysis. Pakistan reports on average about three new cases each month since January.
The WHO and its partners launched the World Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988, following the notable precedent established by the elimination of the smallpox in 1980. The effort was closer several times, including in 2021, when only five cases were reported in Pakistan and Afghanistan. But the cases have since rebounded, going to 99 last year, and Pakistan missed the eradication deadlines several times.
