Daily Times

The Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for polio in Sindh has confirmed the first polio case of the province and the second of the country of 2020.

Spokesperson ECO Sindh said A seven-month old girl from district Tando Allahyar, UC Chamber has contracted the polio virus, the date of onset is 7th January 2020 and her right lower limb is affected. She is from a poor family and a daughter of a laborer. According to recall she had received 3 doses of the polio vaccine in campaign and routine, investigation will be made to confirm this. Spokesperson explained that long gap in door to door campaigns during 2019 has created a large pool of vulnerable children. However, we have a golden opportunity to turn this around with regular campaigns.

National EOC and Sindh EOC have started to fight back to get polio eradication on track and reverse this trend. The first step was the successful Dec NID and now areas with recent detections are being targeted in special response round starting from 13th Jan. We will follow this up with two NIDs in Feb and April with another targeted case response in between. Efforts from Dec – April will bridge the immunity gap that will in sha Allah lead to significant decrease in intensity of virus transmission in 2nd half of 2020. The current risk to our children is very real and while it is our job to deliver these vaccines at the doorstep, caregivers must also step up and protect their children through vaccinations. Meanwhile, a new case of polio virus emerged in Balochistan on Wednesday. According to sources of provincial health department, polio virus was confirmed in eighteen-month-old girl of Union Council Habibzai of district Killa Abdullah. The family of the affected girl in past used to live in Okara, Punjab province. However, no official confirmation was available.