ISLAMABAD: The extensive environmental surveillance established by the Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme has detected the poliovirus in sewage of 12 cities.
According to result shared by the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC), the presence of virus was confirmed in sewage samples collected in March 2019 from cities of Peshawar, Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi, Mardan, Bannu, Waziristan, Hyderabad, Kambar and Sukkur.
Considering the associated risks, the Country Programme has urged parents to ensure immunisation of all children during every polio campaign.
The sewage water samples are collected on a monthly basis from 59 sampling sites across the country. The criteria of sample selection included population size, socioeconomic status and a functioning sewage system.
These samples are collected under the supervision of relevant provincial health departments, and tested by state-of-the-art Regional Polio Reference Laboratory housed at the National Institute of Health, Islamabad.
The genetic sequencing further guides the programme in undertaking requisite response activities.
The persistent poliovirus circulation in a given area represents the existence of under-immunised children who miss vaccination in routine and the door-to-door polio campaigns due to any reason.
These missed children pose a risk for themselves as well as other children around them by shedding the virus to the sewage.
Prime Minister’s Focal Person on Polio Eradication Babar Bin Atta said, “the country has the best opportunity to stop transmission of poliovirus, and its time to gear up our support to the brave front-line workers enabling them to reach and vaccinate every child”.
He said, “Presence of virus anywhere is a threat for vulnerable children. The continuous population movement to and from many of these metropolises pose a real risk to the children elsewhere as well. I can’t emphasise enough how critically important it is to ensure that each and every child is vaccinated during the upcoming polio campaign in the month of April. “
He said the second nationwide polio vaccination campaign of 2019 will start across the country on April 22.
During this campaign, a total of 260,000 front-line workers will go door-to-door across all provinces and towns to ensure more than 39 million children receive two drops of the polio vaccine which will protect them against the poliovirus. He said that polio is a highly infectious disease caused by poliovirus mainly affecting children under the age of ten years. It invades the nervous system, and can cause paralysis or even death.
While there is no cure for polio, vaccination is the most effective way to protect children from this crippling disease. Each time a child under the age of five is vaccinated, their protection against the virus is increased.
He said repeated immunisation have protected millions of children from polio, allowing almost all countries in the world to become polio free.
