2 polio cases reported in Lahore, Hangu

LAHORE: Pakistan’s national anti-polio campaign has been jolted as Lahore has reported its first polio case after 8 years with a history of zero dose despite aggressive routine and supplementary immunization campaigns.

An eight-month-old boy from Shalamar Town is among two cases confirmed with Wild Polio Virus-1 in laboratory reports released by the National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad, on Thursday.

Sources told The News that the routine immunization has failed to achieve the optimum results in urban slums of Lahore, which according to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) report, comprised of 45 per cent of Lahore’s total population. The SDGs instructions emphasize special focus on slums as the population in urban slums remains on the move and hence largely remains unregistered.

The officials of the Health Department, Punjab, on condition of anonymity, said although the routine immunization in Punjab has been achieved up to 86 per cent, but it remained around 80 per cent in Lahore’s slum areas and is continuously dropping. Apart from Lahore, the second polio case emerged in Hangu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It has put a huge question mark on the performance of routine immunization under Expanded Programme of Immunization (EPI), National Immunization Days (NIDs) and Supplementary Immunization Activities (SIAs) conducted across the country.

Babar Atta, prime minister’s Polio Eradication Programme’s focal person, confirmed that the cases reported in Lahore and Hangu, saying that it took the total number of confirmed cases this year to four including one each in Lahore, Hangu, Bannu and Bajaur. One WPV-1 each has been isolated from the Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) cases of district Hangu and Lahore.

The child confirmed with polio virus in Lahore had a history of fever for which he was given injection at a local clinic on right gluteal muscle followed by weakness of right leg with foot drop. Parents then took the child to Kot Khwaja Saeed Hospital for treatment where the case was reported as AFP with provisional diagnosis Traumatic Neuritis/Poliomyelitis.

The second case is a three-month-old girl, Fatima, in Tehsil Thall, Hangu, who was attended by a healthcare provider and a couple of faith healers before she was reported as AFP by a child specialist at Liaquat Memorial Hospital Kohat. The girl had received a single dose verified by the EPI Card.

The districts of Lahore and Hangu have been included in the special February response SIA, starting from February 18, 2019. The districts of Faisalabad and Rawalpindi in Punjab and 20 districts of KP (Central & Northern Corridors) will be targeted with mOPV1 and district Peshawar with bOPV-IPV.

The health experts, on condition of anonymity, informed that Pakistan and Afghanistan would not be able to eradicate polio unless they wipe out polio simultaneously. “The other way to eradicate the polio disease could be to stop free movement of people across the Western border with Afghanistan,” they observed.

Babar Atta said he would sit with the health authorities of Punjab in the next few days to deliberate on what led to such a setback. “I assure that I will personally look into reasons for these polio cases and strict action will be taken if any negligence of staff or authorities is established.”