Islamabad, July 2 (IANS) As Pakistan continued to battle a crippling disease, the country recorded another polio case, increasing the overall tally to 14 so far in 2025, the country’s Health Ministry said on Wednesday.
The new case was reported from the northwest North Waziristan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province as health officials confirmed the detection of type 1 wild poliovirus in a 19-month-old girl.
So far, eight cases have been reported from the province, four from the southern Sindh province and one from the eastern Punjab province and the northern Gilgit-Baltistan region each.
Special polio vaccination campaigns will soon kick off in 11 union councils of North Waziristan district, health officials said, Xinhua news agency reported.
Last week, Pakistan confirmed its 13th case of wild poliovirus in 2025, after the virus was detected in a child from the northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Islamabad confirmed the virus in stool samples collected from an 18-month-old girl in Tank district, the ministry said in a statement on Friday.
This marked the seventh case of polio reported from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa this year.
The NIH in a recent report stated that Wild Poliovirus Type 1 (WPV1) was detected in environmental samples collected from seven districts across Pakistan.
According to the Regional Reference Laboratory, the samples were collected between May 8 and May 23 as part of Pakistan’s ongoing environmental surveillance programme.
Sewage samples from Gwadar and Quetta in southwest Balochistan province, Rawalpindi in eastern Punjab province, South Waziristan Upper and South Waziristan Lower in northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and Larkana and Mirpur Khas in southern Sindh province tested positive for WPV1, the report said.
Samples from Lahore in Punjab province and Pishin in Balochistan province tested negative, it added.
Pakistan reported 74 polio cases in 2024, official figures show.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where wild poliovirus remains endemic. Polio workers have frequently been targetted in attacks, particularly in the northwest and southwest regions.
One of the reasons for the presence of the virus is the refusal of the majority of people to have their children vaccinated. Polio health workers have been victims of targetted killings and attacks by militant groups, who have opposed anti-polio campaigns in the country.
In April, two health workers affiliated with Pakistan’s anti-polio campaign were abducted by unidentified gunmen in the country’s northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
— IANS
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