Another child falls victim to paralyzing illness in KP


A health worker administers polio vaccine drops to a child. — AFP/Archive
  • Paralyzing virus detected in a 13-month-old girl from Tank district.
  • Samples were taken from the affected child in December 2024.
  • The first campaign against polio will begin on February 13 in the province.

PESHAWAR: Amid authorities’ continued efforts to prevent the spread of poliovirus, another child has fallen victim to the crippling disease in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Health Department confirmed on Wednesday.

Poliovirus was detected in a 13-month-old girl, from whom samples were taken in December 2024, in Tatta area of ​​KP’s Tank district, bringing the district’s total number of cases in 2024 to five and the overall provincial count at 21.

The province remains the second most affected by poliovirus and is second only to Balochistan, which reported 27 cases of last year’s total of 69 cases.

Meanwhile, Sindh reported 19 cases, while one case was reported in Punjab and Islamabad.

Due to the confirmation of the last case in the province of Papua New Guinea, the Department of Health reported that starting February 13, the first anti-polio campaign of the current year will be launched in the province.

The inoculation campaign will aim to vaccinate more than six million children.

Pakistan is one of two polio-endemic countries in the world, along with Afghanistan, and the number of annual cases had decreased significantly in the country, until the recent rise in cases.

Pakistan’s Polio Eradication Program explains that polio is a “crippling” disease that has “no cure” and that “completion of routine vaccination for all children under five years of age” only provides them with “high immunity.” against this terrible disease.

The government has launched multiple vaccination campaigns as part of its efforts to eradicate the disease from the country; The last one was carried out in December 2024 with the objective of inoculating 44,000,000 children throughout the country.

A week-long provincial anti-polio campaign was also launched in Balochistan on December 30 with the aim of vaccinating more than 2.6 million children up to five years of age.



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