Di khan/Islamabad:
A undernational anti-polio campaign began in southern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) on a gloomy note when unknown misunderstandings on Monday abducted three Senior World Health Organization (WHO) officials monitoring the campaign. Another two polio cases were also confirmed in KP.
According to a press release issued by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the two new cases appeared in North Waziristan and Lakki Marwat Districts.
In North Waziristan’s Mir Ali Tehsil, a 19 -month -old infant was found infected with the paralyzing disease. The second case was confirmed in an 11 -month -old infant in Lakki Marwat’s Suleman Khel Tehsil.
These new cases took the total number of cases reported in KP since the start of the year to 18, the highest out of any province in the country. The nationwide tally is now at 26 with six cases from Sindh, 18 from KP and one from Punjab and Gilgit-Baltistan.
The detailed results of August’s environmental wastewater samples regarding polio – combined from 87 districts across the country – said NIH: “Of the 126 environmental tests, 75 were found negative without polioviruses, while 51 samples tested positives.”
According to NIH, out of a total of 23 samples tested for polio in Balochistan, it was only one positive, while 10 in KP, out of 34 tested samples, was found to be positive.
Punjab registered 14 polio-positive samples, out of 31 tested; Poliovirus was found in 24 of the 29 samples tested in Sindh, 12 of which were in Karachi. A sample each was found positive for the virus in GB and Islamabad.
“Balochistan reported a significant reduction, with only a positive environmental site in July and August, down from 19 in January,” the press release states.
“In KP, positive environmental places fell from 13 in April to August 10,” it noted.
It said “Seven out of the 10 positive places were in the southern part of the province, while all samples from Peshawar tested negatively for the virus. In Islamabad, the number of positive environmental leads has dropped from three in July to one in August.”
NIH expressed concern about “continued detection of cases, especially in southern KP,” stating that “children living in difficult to access areas and those in low vaccine accept communities remain most exposed to risk.”
Meanwhile, three senior rates that officials monitored the polio campaign in the Tank District in KP were abducted by unidentified armed men.
Tank District Police Officer (DPO) Shabir Hussain told The Express Pakinomist that abducted officers were identified as WHO -District Monitoring Officer Dr. IHSAN, UCCSO HIKMATULLAH AND UCPO ABDULLAH.
“The three officials were kidnapped from the Umar Khail area of Union Council Mulla Zai in the Tank District. Police have launched the efforts to recover they abducted,” he added.
