DI KHAN/ISLAMABAD:
A sub-national anti-polio campaign began in southern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) on a somber note as unknown miscreants on Monday abducted three senior World Health Organization (WHO) officials monitoring the campaign. Two more polio cases were also confirmed in the K-P.
According to a press release issued by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the two new cases emerged in North Waziristan and Lakki Marwat districts.
In North Waziristan’s Mir Ali tehsil, a 19-month-old infant was found infected with the crippling disease. The other case was confirmed in an 11-month-old infant in Lakki Marwat’s Suleman Khel tehsil.
These new cases took the total number of cases reported in the K-P since the start of the year to 18, the highest out of any province in the country. The nationwide tally now stands at 26, with six cases from Sindh, 18 from the K-P and one each from Punjab and Gilgit-Baltistan.
Detailing the results of August’s environmental sewage samples regarding poliocollected from 87 districts across the countrythe NIH said, “of the 126 environmental samples tested, 75 were found negative with no poliovirus detected, while 51 samples tested positive.”
As per the NIH, out of a total of 23 samples tested for polio in Balochistan, only one was positive, while in the K-P, out of 34 samples tested, 10 were found to be positive.
Punjab recorded 14 polio-positive samples, out of 31 tested; poliovirus was found in 24 of the 29 samples tested in Sindh, 12 of which were in Karachi. One sample each was found positive for the virus in the G-B and Islamabad.
“Balochistan reported a marked reduction, with only one positive environmental site in July and August, down from 19 in January,” the press release said.
“In the K-P, positive environmental sites dropped from 13 in April to 10 in August,” it noted.
It said “seven out of the 10 positive sites were in the south of the province, while all samples from Peshawar tested negative for the virus. In Islamabad, the number of positive environmental sites has decreased from three in July to one in August.”
The NIH expressed concern at the “continued detection of cases, particularly in southern K-P,” stating that “children living in hard-to-reach areas and those in communities with low vaccine acceptance remain most at risk.”
Meanwhile, three senior WHO officials monitoring the polio campaign in Tank district of the K-P were abducted by unidentified armed men.
Tank District Police Officer (DPO) Shabir Hussain told The Express Tribune that abducted officers were identified as WHO District Surveillance Officer Dr Ihsan, UCCSO Hikmatullah, and UCPO Abdullah.
“The three officials were kidnapped from the Umar Khail area of Union Council Mulla Zai in Tank district. Police have launched efforts to recover the abductees,” he added.
