ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s health authorities said on Tuesday a wild poliovirus detected in an environmental sample in Lahore earlier this year had links with a poliovirus found in Nangahar, Afghanistan, last November.
The discovery was made by the country’s polio laboratory that works under the National Institute of Health in Islamabad.
Polio is a highly infectious disease that mainly affects children under the age of five years by invading their nervous system. The illness cannot be cured and results in paralysis or even causes death.
Polio has been eradicated across the world, though Pakistan and Afghanistan remain the only two countries where it is still endemic.
“While the isolation of the virus is a cause of concern, it is excellent to note that it was detected promptly,” said the country’s health minister Abdul Qadir Patel in a statement while pointing out that Pakistan and Afghanistan were together in their fight against the disease.
“This timely detection of the virus in the environment is crucial to protecting children from being paralyzed by the poliovirus,” he continued.
A nationwide immunization campaign which concluded last week vaccinated children in the Lahore division. The authorities have also planned additional campaigns in February and March to prevent any possible disease outbreak.
“It is critically important that parents and caregivers, particularly in Lahore, ensure that their child is vaccinated in the February round,” said the minister.
Commenting on the polio laboratory’s finding, Dr. Shahzad Baig, coordinator of the National Emergency Operations Center, said it was not surprising since Pakistan and Afghanistan were taken as a single epidemiological block in which polioviruses moved across border due to widespread population movement.
“In the past year, we have worked very closely with the Afghanistan program and treat the virus in both countries as our own,” he said. “Neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan can be free of polio until both countries interrupt its transmission.”
Baig said the only way to stop the virus was to vaccinate all children under the age of five.
The last polio case was recorded in Lahore in July 2020, though the virus was periodically detected in its sewage water. Last year, four environmental samples were found positive for wild poliovirus in Lahore district.
