- Disabling virus detected in 13-month-old girl from Tank district.
- Samples from the affected child were collected in December 2024.
- The first anti-polio campaign will begin on February 13 in the province.
PESHAWAR: As authorities continue their efforts to prevent the spread of poliovirus, another child has fallen prey to the crippling disease in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the health ministry confirmed on Wednesday.
The poliovirus was detected in a 13-month-old girl – from whom samples were collected in December 2024 – in the Tatta area of KP’s Tank district, bringing the district’s total number of cases in 2024 to five and the number total cases in the province at 21.
The province remains the second worst affected by poliovirus and is surpassed only by Balochistan which reported 27 cases out of last year’s total of 69 cases.
Meanwhile, Sindh reported 19 cases, while one case each was reported from Punjab and Islamabad.
Following the confirmation of the latest case in KP, the Health Department announced that the first anti-polio campaign of the current year would be launched in the province from February 13.
The vaccination campaign will aim to vaccinate more than six million children.
Pakistan is one of two polio-endemic countries in the world, along with Afghanistan, and the number of annual cases has declined significantly in the country, until the recent surge in cases.
The Pakistan Polio Eradication Program explains that polio is a “paralyzing” “incurable” disease and that “completion of routine immunization of all children under the age of five” simply gives them “high immunity against this terrible disease.
The government has launched several vaccination campaigns as part of its efforts to eliminate the disease from the country, with the last one taking place in December 2024, aiming to vaccinate 44,000,000 children across the country.
A week-long provincial anti-polio campaign was also launched in Balochistan on December 30 with the aim of vaccinating over 2.6 million children under the age of five.
