Daily Times

The year’s first case of poliovirus has surfaced in the tribal district of Bajaur in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P).

According to Prime Minister’s Focal Person for Polio Eradication Babar Bin Atta, an 11-month-old child was diagnosed with the virus in area. In a Twitter post on Saturday, Atta stated that in the past three months, six cases of poliovirus have been reported from Bajaur.

He said that due to the negligence demonstrated by the polio eradication team in the district, seven polio workers were expelled last week as last year there had been no reports of poliovirus from tribal district. He added that his next target would be to monitor the performance of polio eradication teams in Lahore, Faisalabad and Rawalpindi as traces of poliovirus have been found in the sewage water in Lahore and Faisalabad.

The polio eradication campaign in Pakistan has faced many challenges, from the refusal of parents to administer the drops to attacks on polio teams by militants. Polio (poliomyelitis) is a highly infectious debilitating virus that targets the nervous system of children, causing partial or complete paralysis of their limbs. Since 1988, reported polio cases worldwide have declined by more than 99 per cent, but the virus remains endemic in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.

Published in Daily Times, February 3^rd 2019.