Pakistan reports 2 new polio cases; yearly tally rises to 45

Health workers administer polio drops to children during a door-to-door vaccination campaign in Lahore on October 28, 2024. Photo courtesy: AFP

The number of polio cases in Pakistan this year has increased to 45 after two fresh cases were reported in the country’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, officials said on Saturday.

Geo News quoted the National Emergency Operations Center as saying that the latest cases were reported in Lakki Marwat and Dera Ismail Khan provinces.

The regional reference laboratory for polio eradication at the National Institutes of Health confirmed these cases as wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1).

This is the second case of polio in both the districts this year where environmental samples have tested positive for WPV1, highlighting the high risk of virus transmission in the region.

According to The Express Tribune newspaper, WPV1 has been detected in 76 districts across all four provinces of the county, indicating widespread spread of the virus.

The detection of new cases has dealt a blow to Pakistan’s efforts to contain the spread of the dreaded disease, for which a nationwide eradication program is underway.

The week-long polio vaccination campaign began on Monday, aiming to inoculate more than 45 million children under the age of five against the virus.

Also read: Four new cases of polio were reported in Pakistan in October; This year this number has increased to 37

According to the report, of the 45 cases detected in Pakistan this year, 22 were reported from Balochistan, 12 from Sindh, nine from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.

According to the World Health Organization, Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries in the world where polio remains an endemic disease.