The paralysing poliovirus: Karachi primed for explosive outbreak, says WHO

Two more cases were confirmed in the city within 24 hours.


Noman Ahmed December 05, 2013
Two more poliovirus cases were confirmed in the city within 24 hours.PHOTO: MUHAMMAD JAVAID/EXPRESS, APP AND INP

KARACHI:


The emergence of two poliovirus cases in Karachi within 24 hours has prompted the World Health Organisation (WHO) to signal that the city is likely to head towards an ‘explosive polio outbreak’.


The National Institute of Health (NIH) in Islamabad confirmed to The Express Tribune on Wednesday that eight-month-old Ghulam Mustafa was the fifth confirmed poliovirus sufferer from Karachi, raising the number of this year’s victims in the country to 73.

Meanwhile, the place of contact was determined as Bin Qasim Town – the origin of this year’s first case of polio in the country – where the child’s parents did not refuse the immunisation like the previous four cases. But the victim was never administered the polio vaccine, said Dr Durre Naz Jamal, the deputy project director at the Sindh Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI).

Earlier on Tuesday, the posthumous diagnosis of the poliovirus in a four-month-old baby girl from Baldia Town had already raised concerns about the efficiency of the government-run polio eradication campaigns.

The paralysed victim, Amina Bismillah, had potentially died of the virus around two weeks ago, before the report of her stool sample test confirmed the presence of the poliomyelitis P-1 type by the NIH on Tuesday.

“I must say, the situation in Karachi is very alarming,” said Dr Elias Durry, the head of WHO’s polio eradication initiative in Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 5th, 2013.

COMMENTS (1)

Ali S | 10 years ago | Reply

Indiscriminately kick out all the illegal refugees from Afghanistan and FATA who have set up camps throughout Karachi (and form the majority in the city's outskirts) and you'll get rid of not just polio, but also drugs, gun culture and extremists. Altaf Hussain's prediction about this several years ago was dead right but once again it was dismissed as more 'crazy talk'. These people are parasites who have nothing positive to contribute to society.

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