Bureau Report
PESHAWAR: A two-day anti-polio drive kicked off in Bannu and North Waziristan districts of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Province on Thursday.
A polio case had been reported on North Waziristan which was confirmed by the national polio laboratory on April 22. According to the emergency operation centre, the poliovirus case was reported in KP province after 21 months. Earlier, the NEOC Coordinator Dr Shahzad Baig had confirmed that a poliovirus case was reported in Pakistan after 15 months which is the third polio case in 2022 globally.
The polio laboratory had also confirmed the detection of positive environmental samples collected from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) earlier in the month.
The government is organising special campaigns on an emergency basis to completely eliminate the poliovirus.
He had said in a Twitter thread, “Deeply saddened to share that a 15-month-old boy has been paralyzed in North Waziristan, Southern KP, as #Pakistan confirms a wild #poliovirus case after nearly 15 months.”
Dr Shahzad Baig, the Coordinator of the National Emergency Operations Centre for Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme (NEOC), had appealed to the parents for administering anti-polio drops to their children.
Dr Baig had said, “Without global polio eradication efforts, an estimated 20 million people today would be paralyzed by this disease. #Pakistan and #Afghanistan are the only two polio-endemic countries left in the world. Our children too, deserve a polio-free life.”
