ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s southern city of Jacobabad has reported its fourth polio case this year, the country’s polio program said on Wednesday, amid an intense resurgence of the virus in the South Asian country.
Polio is a paralyzing disease that has no cure. Multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five is essential to provide children high immunity against this terrible disease.
Pakistan is responding to an intense resurgence of wild poliovirus type 1, with 64 cases reported this year, according to the polio program. Of these, 26 are from Balochistan, 18 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 18 from Sindh, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
“It is crucial for parents to ensure vaccination for all their children under the age of five to keep them protected,” the polio program said in a statement.
Pakistan on Monday launched the latest nationwide anti-polio drive to vaccinate 44 million children in 143 districts. The drive will continue till Dec. 22. The South Asian country’s polio eradication efforts have faced several challenges in recent years, including militant attacks and misinformation spread by militants and conservative clerics.
Pakistan, along with neighboring Afghanistan, remains the last polio-endemic country in the world. In the early 1990s, the country reported around 20,000 cases annually but in 2018 the number dropped to eight cases. Six cases were reported in 2023 and only one in 2021.
