PESHAWAR: Pakistan reported its 43rd poliovirus case of the year on Wednesday with the latest infection reported from the southwestern Balochistan province, the country’s national polio program confirmed, as Islamabad struggles to contain an alarming surge of the disease.
The latest case was reported from the southwestern Chagai district in Balochistan, where a child contracted the disease.
This makes it the first poliovirus case reported from the Chagai district this year and Balochistan’s 23rd. The development takes place as Pakistan launched a nationwide campaign on Monday to vaccinate over 45 million children against polio.
“On Wednesday, 30 October 2024, the lab confirmed detection of Type-1 Wild Poliovirus in a child from Chagai District of Balochistan,” Pakistan’s polio eradication program said in a statement.
Giving a breakdown of the cases, the program said Pakistan has reported 23 polio cases from Balochistan, 12 from the southern Sindh province, six from the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and one each from Punjab and Islamabad this year.
Polio has caused a headache for Islamabad as Pakistan remains one of only two countries worldwide where the disease is endemic.
Its efforts to eliminate the disease have been hit hard by frequent militant attacks targeting vaccination teams. Religiously motivated militants, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, accuse polio vaccination teams of using inoculation campaigns to sterilize Pakistani children based on a Western conspiracy.
The masses’ doubts regarding polio campaigns were exacerbated in 2011 when the US Central Intelligence Agency set up a fake vaccination program to gather intelligence on former Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.
Two police officers were killed and three militants gunned down in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday after armed men attacked a polio vaccination team during an inoculation drive.
This followed a September attack in which two people were killed when gunmen attacked a polio vaccination team in the northwestern Bajaur tribal district.
