Sewage samples testing positive for polio in Karachi due to visitors: minister

Rejecting reports which stated that there was a likelihood of an increase in polio cases from Karachi, Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Pechuho on Saturday said environmental samples had been testing positive from sewage in entire Pakistan and the worst affected province at the moment was Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, followed by Punjab and Sindh.

“Environment samples are not only testing positive in Karachi but also from across the country as we are facing a very challenging situation,” Dr Pechuho said as she commented on some reports which stated that polio virus had been found in sewage samples collected from several sites in Karachi.

The health minister claimed that due to hectic efforts and repeated polio immunisation drives, only two children had so far tested positive for polio in Karachi, one of whom escaped paralysis as she had been administered multiple doses of oral polio vaccine.

The two children of Karachi who tested positive for polio this year belonged to the Lyari and Abul Hasan Ispahani Road localities, said officials at the Sindh Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for Polio Eradication.

They added that due to the repeated vaccination, the baby girl in Lyari escaped paralysis; however, the toddler of the Abul Hasan Ispahani Road area in Gulshan-e-Iqbal Town was paralysed as he had never taken polio vaccine drops due to his parents’ refusal.

“Despite positive samples, Karachi has only two cases of polio which shows the commitment of the Sindh government to protect children from polio. It is through our repeated vaccination drives that children have been saved,” the health minister remarked, adding that Karachi was the transport hub of the country and a transit city where people from all the areas of the country were travelling to, which made the city prone to polio virus.

She maintained that Karachi had a target population of 2.4 million children under five years of age but despite that only three cases tested positive in Sindh (one from Larkana and two from Karachi) compared to the nine cases from KP and three from Punjab.

“There will be a polio campaign in Karachi and the rest of Sindh from June 17 onwards to address these positive samples. Parents must vaccinate their children in order to save them from polio,” Dr Pechuho said.

WHO concerns

Despite the official claims that the anti-polio programme in the country is being successfully run, the World Health Organisation (WHO) is concerned about the increase in the wild poliovirus (WPV1) cases in Pakistan where 21 cases have already been reported in the current year.

The WHO has observed that the polio eradication programme in the country is no longer on track.

“[It is] understood that the recent elections and political transition may have adversely affected delivery of the polio programme [but] it is now essential that the new government renews its efforts, noting that the [polio] eradication programme in the country is no longer on track,” read a statement issued by the WHO regarding the twenty-first IHR Emergency Committee, which was convened by WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on the international spread of polio virus.

The WHO statement said that the committee reviewed the data of WPV1 and the circulating vaccine derived polioviruses (cVDPV).

The IHR states parties, including Pakistan, Afghanistan, DR Congo, Indonesia, Nigeria and Somalia, provided an update on the current situation and the implementation of the WHO’s temporary recommendations since the committee last met on February 19, this year. The WHO emergency committee said the transmission of wild polio virus in Pakistan continued as indicated by the number of positive environmental samples in many areas of the country.

“The recent cluster of cases in Lahore also indicates that vulnerabilities still exist outside the high-risk corridors. Notably, the increased rate of infection during what is usually the low season may herald even higher rates of infection in the coming high season unless urgent remedial steps are taken,” the statement read.

The WHO committee also raised concerns about the attacks on vaccinators and the police protecting them. It said the increasing refusals by individuals and communities also needed to be actively addressed.

It also noted that the recent detection of WPV1 in Iran was from a sample collected from an area close to the country’s international border with Pakistan.

“While there is no evidence currently that transmission has occurred in Iran and routine immunisation coverage is high there, this finding together with the resumption of WPV1 international spread between Pakistan and Afghanistan suggests that rising transmission in Pakistan correlates with increasing risk of WPV1 exportation beyond the single epidemiological block formed by the two countries. The Iran event is the first such exportation detected since 2014.”