Two new polio cases detected amid record-high parental refusal

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's polio eradication efforts suffered a serious setback on Friday when officials confirmed that two more children, one each in Karachi’s Keamari district and Killa Abdullah in Balochistan, were paralyzed by the Wild Poliovirus 1 (WPV1). With these new detections, the country's total number of polio cases this year has reached eight.

According to official sources, thousands of parents across Pakistan refused to get their children vaccinated during the last vaccination campaign.

Officials reported that six polio cases have been recorded in Balochistan, including three from Killa Abdullah and one each from Dera Bugti, Chaman, and Quetta. Additionally, two cases have been reported in Sindh, with one each from Shikarpur and Karachi's Keamari district.

According to the Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health, WPV1 was detected in stool samples collected from a two-year-old child in Killa Abdullah, who exhibited paralysis onset on May 22, and a three-year-old from Karachi Keamari, who exhibited paralysis onset on June 3. Preliminary investigations revealed that the child paralyzed in Killa Abdullah was a 'refusal case', indicating that the parents had refused vaccination. Meanwhile, there is no evidence available to confirm whether the baby girl paralyzed in Keamari received polio vaccination drops.

This marks the third polio case from Killa Abdullah and the first from Karachi this year. Six of this year’s eight cases have been reported from Balochistan.

Polio eradication initiative officials claimed that the virus isolated from samples taken from both children is genetically linked to the YB3A cluster, which has been detected in all positive cases and environmental samples reported this year. It is worth mentioning that the poliovirus has been detected in 203 environmental samples across 47 districts in Pakistan, including the capital Islamabad. Experts fear that more polio cases could emerge in the coming days. Poliovirus particularly attacks children who are malnourished and have weak immunity due to being under-vaccinated or not vaccinated for polio and other childhood diseases. But the biggest frustration is the "refusal of parents across the country to vaccinate their children, officials said and added we came across thousands of cases, particularly in the last vaccination drive," the field staff said.

Ayesha Raza Farooq, the Prime Minister’s Focal Person for Polio, expressed concern over the detections, stating, "There have been several detections of poliovirus this year, and it is unfortunate that it remains a threat to Pakistani children. Until we eradicate this virus, no child anywhere is safe from this terrible disease." She added that the government is leading the charge against polio and is implementing a rigorous vaccination strategy to improve children’s immunity.

Muhammad Anwarul Haq, Coordinator of the National Emergency Operations Center, announced that the Polio Programme will launch a comprehensive case investigation to identify routes of virus transmission and uncover populations that might have missed vaccination.

The Polio Programme will be launching a vaccination drive from July 1 to July 7 to vaccinate more than 9.5 million children in 41 districts. It urged parents and caregivers, religious leaders, teachers, community elders, and all sections of society to play their role in countering this terrible disease and ensure that all children under five years of age are vaccinated multiple times against polio.