Well being staff stroll on snow throughout a polio vaccination drive in Pakistan-administered Kashmir’s Neelum Valley. File
| Picture Credit score: AFP
Pakistani authorities have confirmed two new poliovirus cases, one every in Sindh and Punjab provinces, posing a setback to the nation’s efforts to eradicate the crippling illness, in line with a media report.
The brand new instances had been reported from Qambar district in Sindh and Mandi Bahauddin district in Punjab, bringing the whole variety of instances this 12 months to 5, Geo Information reported.
In line with the Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication on the Nationwide Institute of Well being (NIH), that is the third case of the crippling illness in Sindh and the primary in Punjab.
Final 12 months, a complete of 74 instances had been reported. Of those, 27 had been from Balochistan, 22 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 23 from Sindh, and one every from Punjab and Islamabad.
Polio is a paralysing illness that has no remedy and solely a number of doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all kids underneath the age of 5 can present kids with excessive immunity towards this horrible illness.
Pakistan by means of its anti-polio vaccination programme conducts a number of mass vaccination drives in a 12 months, bringing the vaccine to kids at their doorsteps, whereas the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) offers vaccinations towards 12 childhood illnesses freed from cost at well being services.
The primary nationwide polio marketing campaign of 2025 performed from February 3 to 9 was efficiently concluded with 99% of the targets achieved throughout the nation.
Throughout this marketing campaign, greater than 45 million kids had been administered the polio vaccine.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the one nations on this planet the place poliovirus remains to be rampant. The primary purpose is the refusal on the a part of dad and mom who, underneath the affect of extremists, consider the vaccine was a conspiracy to sterilise Muslims.
Revealed – February 28, 2025 01:03 pm IST
