LAHORE: The culminating moments of year 2019 has seen a spike in polio cases in Pakistan as a new case of wild poliovirus (WPV) has been confirmed in district Muzaffargarh in South Punjab.The latest case is a seven-month-old baby girl, belonging to a Pashtun family, has been confirmed with wild poliovirus in Kot Addu, a tehsil of district Muzaffargarh in South Punjab.With confirmation of the latest wild poliovirus polio case, the tally of wild poliovirus cases in Punjab has risen to six this year; while the number of polio cases overall has reached seven including one case of vaccine-derived poliovirus type-2 (cVDPV2), indicating the presence of both forms of viruses in Punjab as well as in other parts of the country. The maiden case of type-2 polio was also detected in Gujranwala district only recently in November – the penultimate month of the year 2019. The remaining five cases of wild poliovirus (WPV) including four cases from Lahore and one case from Jhelum have previously been reported in Punjab in 2019 so far.As per data, out of a total of 104 cases, 94 cases of wild poliovirus (WPV) have been reported in Pakistan in 2019 so far including six cases in Punjab, 14 cases from Sindh, 68 cases from KP and 7 cases from Balochistan, while GB, AJK and Islamabad are free of wild poliovirus this year so far. Besides, a total of 12 type-2 (cVDPV2) polio cases have been reported from all over Pakistan including 6 cases from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 4 cases from Gilgit-Baltistan and one case each from Punjab and Islamabad in 2019. Sindh, Balochistan and Azad Kashmir are still free from type-2 (cVDPV2) poliovirus. Pakistan is among three countries in the world still polio-endemic – the other two are Afghanistan and Nigeria.Meanwhile, anti-polio campaign has kicked off across Punjab Monday with a target to vaccinate 19.9 million children below the age of five years. Besides, the children will be immunised with Vitamin-A doses to prevent different diseases through strengthening immunity. As many as 50,000 vaccinating teams have been formed to vaccinate children during door-to-door campaign, in hospitals and on important public places.Punjab government has given a WhatsApp helpline ie 0346-7776546 for information and registration of complaints with regard to polio vaccination. Secretary to Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department Punjab Capt Usman (retd), Additional Secretary Health Salman Ghani along with Badshahi Masjid Khateeb Maulana Abdul Khabeer Azad visited a high-risk union council in Samnabad Town, Lahore, and administered polio drops to children. Polio ambassador/former Pakistan cricket captain Wasim Akram backed all polio workers as frontline soldiers in the fight against crippling disease in the country.
from The News International - National https://ift.tt/36zw7xg
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