PESHAWAR: The National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad has notified first wild polio case of the year 2020 from Serai Naurang area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Lakki Marwat district as the national case count closed at 136 for the year 2019. The wild poliovirus has been isolated from the stool sample of 12 months old male childfrom Bakhmal Ahmadzai Union Council, Serai Naurang in Lakki Marwat. According to the Health Department officials, the family had refused essential immunisation and three doses of SIAs. It is worth mentioning that oral polio vaccine (OPV) is the only cure from poliomyelitis as once contracted the disease was incurable. Coordinator for EOC Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Abdul Basit, said a major cause of the surge in polio cases is parental refusal, misconceptions and anti-polio propaganda.
Out of 136 polio cases, the majority of cases were reported from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. And in KP, most of the polio cases were reported in Tank and Bannu districts in the southern belt.
The provincial capital Peshawar had also reported one polio case last year, though some insiders alleged that some of the cases were deliberately not reported.Abdul Basit said polio eradication was a government programme meant to protect the children from disabilities and eradication of a disease that has been wiped out from the globe except for Pakistan and Afghanistan.
01-21-2020, 02:12 PM
KP reports first polio case of 2020
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