ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Friday reported its second case of wild polio virus case this year, health authorities said, in a two-year-old girl in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries where the disease is still endemic. The highly infectious disease causes paralysis or even death. Children under five are the most vulnerable, but people can be fully protected with vaccines.
Spread through faeces and saliva, the virus has historically thrived in the blurred borderlands between the South Asian nations, where state infrastructure is weak.
“Today, the Pakistan National Polio Laboratory at the NIH (National Institute of Health), Islamabad, has confirmed the detection of Type-1 Wild Poliovirus from the stool specimen from a 24-month-old girl from district North Waziristan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa,” the National Emergency Operation Center (NEOC) said in a statement on Friday.
“The girl had an onset of paralysis on 14 April 2022.”
Pakistan reported its first polio case of the year on April 22, when a 15-month-old boy from Mir Ali area of the same district was found infected with the virus.
It was reported after a gap of more than a year.
To formally eradicate the disease, a nation must be polio-free for three consecutive years — but even 12 months is a long time in a country where vaccination teams are in the crosshairs of a simmering insurgency.
Since the Taliban takeover of neighboring Afghanistan, the Pakistan version of the movement has become emboldened and its fighters frequently target anti-polio teams.
Pakistan anti-polio drives have been running since 1994, with up to 260,000 vaccinators staging regular waves of regional inoculation campaigns.
But on the fringes of the country, the teams often face skepticism.
“In certain areas of Pakistan, it was considered as a Western conspiracy,” Shahzad Baig, a national polio eradication program official, said in January.
The theories ranged wildly: polio teams are spies, the vaccines cause infertility, or contain pig fat forbidden by Islam.
The spy theory gained currency with the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011, whose hideaway in Abbottabad was revealed to the United States — unwittingly or otherwise — by a vaccine program run by a Pakistani doctor.
“It’s a complex situation,” said Baig. “It’s socio-economical, it’s political.”
The porous border with Afghanistan — a strategic crutch for the Pakistani Taliban — can also keep polio circulating.
No longer polio-free, Pakistan reports second virus case this year
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No longer polio-free, Pakistan reports second virus case this year
- Pakistan, Afghanistan are only countries where polio is still endemic
- The highly infectious disease can cause paralysis or even death
Afghan interior minister welcomes Pakistani scholars’ ‘positive’ remarks about Kabul
- Pakistani religious scholars on Dec. 23 called for easing tensions between Islamabad and Kabul, resumption of trade
- Sirajuddin Haqqani says Afghanistan is committed to regional peace, Afghans have “no intentions to threaten anyone”
PESHAWAR: Afghanistan’s Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani recently thanked Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar and religious scholars from the country for expressing positive statements for Kabul despite tensions between the two countries.
A meeting of religious scholars in Pakistan on Dec. 23, attended by Jamiat Ulama-e-Pakistan political party head Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman, called for easing tensions between the two states. The scholars also called for allowing resumption of trade and movement of people between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Pakistani news media outlets reported on Saturday that Dar, who is also Pakistan’s foreign minister, praised Haqqani’s earlier statement in which the Afghan minister stressed resolving tensions between Islamabad and Kabul through dialogue.
In a video statement on Sunday, Haqqani said Afghanistan is committed to peace and stability in the country and the region, adding that Afghans have “no intentions to threaten anyone.” He appreciated Rehman and religious scholar Mufti Taqi Usmani for speaking in a “positive” manner about Afghanistan in the Dec. 23 meeting.
“We are thankful and grateful for their approach and views,” Haqqani said.
“Similarly, we really appreciate the positive remarks by Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, who spoke in a positive way about Afghanistan.”
The Afghan minister’s statement comes in the backdrop of increased tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan amid a surge in militant attacks in the latter’s territory.
Pakistan blames Afghanistan’s government for facilitating attacks by the Pakistani Taliban or TTP group. Islamabad accuses Kabul of allowing TTP militants to take shelter in sanctuaries in Afghanistan from where they carry out attacks targeting Pakistan.
Kabul denies the charges and says it cannot be held responsible for security lapses and challenges in Pakistan.
The two countries engaged in fierce border clashes in October that led to the killings of dozens of soldiers and civilians on both sides. Pakistan and Afghanistan subsequently agreed to a temporary ceasefire and have held three rounds of peace talks that remained inconclusive.
Tensions persist as Pakistan has vowed to go after militants even in Afghanistan that threaten the lives of its citizens. Afghan officials have warned Pakistan of retaliation if it attacks Afghanistan.
