Polio updates: Four new polio cases surface in FATA, K-P

This raises the total number of polio cases in Pakistan this year to 280


October 24, 2014

In 2014, Pakistan broke its own 14-year-old record when it crossed 200 polio cases. According to the World Health Organization, the country is at a “tipping point” as the remaining endemic countries in the world—Afghanistan and Nigeria—have seen a significant decline in the number of cases this year.

All stories related to polio, including new cases, attacks on health workers and other reports on polio can be found here. Stories can can be found on this trend page as well.

Below is an interactive Google map of all polio cases reported and attacks on polio workers in 2014. The map will be updated as new cases are reported. You can get detailed information on every polio case and attack on polio workers by clicking on the markers. Markers identify approximate location.

This map will be updated when WHO releases their weekly polio bulletin



 





Four new polio cases surface in FATA, K-P

Four new wild type-1 polio cases surfaced in the Federally Administered Tribal Area (Fata) and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, raising the total number of polio cases this year in Pakistan to 280.

Read the full story here.



Polio worker shot dead in Faisalabad 

A polio worker was killed in Faisalabad on Tuesday when unidentified armed men opened fire, Express News reported.

Identified as Sarfaraz, the worker was administering polio drops in the city's Peoples Colony.

Read the full story here.



National polio tally climbs to 266 as four new cases emerge

Of the four new cases, two pertained to Federally Administered Tribal Areas, one to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa while the fourth was from Balochistan.

Meanwhile in Karachi's Gadap Town, a three-day anti-polio campaign has been postponed over concerns of lack of security.

Read the full story here



Jundullah claims responsibility for attack on polio workers in Quetta

The militant organisation Jundullah on Friday claimed responsibility for the deadly attack on anti-polio campaigners in Quetta in which four vaccinators were killed and three wounded.

Read the full story here.

Three arrested for beating polio vaccinators in Pakistan

Police arrested three men for beating up two polio vaccinators in Lahore, officials said Friday, the latest case of violence against health workers seeking to immunise children against the crippling disease.

Read the full story here.


WHO refutes reports of suspending operations in Balochistan

The World Health Organisation (WHO) denied earlier reports that it had suspended its operations in Balochistan owing to security threats to health workers in the aftermath of an attack on a polio team near Quetta on Wednesday. The organistaion’s focal person in Pakistan said the WHO had neither closed nor withdrawn its operations.

“WHO would like to categorically dispel the notion of closing down or withdrawing its operations in Balochistan or anywhere else in Pakistan,” Dr Michel Thieren, WHO Representative in Pakistan, said in a press release issued on Thursday.

Read the full story here.

Two polio workers beaten up in Lahore


Two health workers were beaten up in Lahore while carrying out polio vaccination campaign on Thursday, Express News reported.

Identified as Tehseen and Sunny, the workers were tortured when they went to administer polio drops to a house in Ravi Town.

Read here for the full story.

More children at risk

At least 12,224 parents refused to have their children vaccinated against polio during the recent campaign, a report by Peshawar’s health department revealed, Express News reported Thursday.

Refusal by such a large number of parents has left 31,452 children vulnerable to the crippling disease.

The campaign in Peshawar commenced on November 23 in conjunction with anti-polio drives carried out across the country.

Read the full story here: here



Fighting for polio and his life without a penny in payment

When your father earns Rs300 to 400 a day and has a family of six, it does not matter how young you are or how dangerous the field; you work. Cold poverty is what prompted 18-year-old Sajjid to participate in vaccination campaigns in between attending tenth grade in Charsadda district.

Read the full story here.

 



4 killed, 3 injured in attack on polio team near Quetta

Four polio workers – including three women – were shot dead and three others wounded in a targeted attack on their vehicle in Eastern Bypass area near Quetta on Wednesday morning.

“The team was on its way to the assigned union council after collecting polio vaccines in Killi Ahmzai area when armed men on motorbikes intercepted their vehicle on Link Road of Easter Bypass,” said an eyewitness, adding that masked men first shot the woman campaigner in front seat and then opened indiscriminate fire on other workers sitting in the back of the pickup.

Read the full story here.

 



Swat reports its first polio case in five years 

The first polio case in five years from the scenic Swat valley was confirmed on Monday, which, along with a fresh case from Sindh, raised the national tally to 262.

According to an official of the ministry of health, the cases were confirmed after being tested for polio virus at the National Institute of Health (NIH).

Read the full story here.

TTP-Jamaat Ahrar claims responsibility for attack on polio team in Charsadda

Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) faction Jamaatul Ahrar on Monday claimed responsibility for the attack on a polio vaccination worker in the Shabqadar area of district Charsadda, where one worker was injured.

“We claim responsibility for the  attack on polio workers in Shabqadr,” TTP Jamaatul Ahrar spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan said.

Read the story here.

 



Four more cases of polio raise countrywide total to 257

Four new polio cases were reported in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Fata on Thursday, raising the national total for 2014 to 257 cases throughout Pakistan.

Three of the cases confirmed were from Peshawar, while one was from South Waziristan Agency.

Read the full story here.

 



Another polio case pushes Balochistan total to 12

A new polio case surfaced in Qila Abdullah on Wednesday, raising the total number of cases in Balochistan to 12 this year.

The latest victim of the crippling disease was identified as 14-month-old Bahadur, son of Abdul Razzaq, a resident of Chaman Town, Union Council Daman Ashezai, a town which shares a border with Afghanistan.

Read the full story here.

 



Polio case in Balochistan pushes country total to 244

As polio cases continue to pile up in the country , an 18-month-old girl has also fallen prey to the deadly disease, Express News reported on Thursday.

The newest case take the total number of cases reported to 244 across the country. The case was reported in the Killa Abdullah district of Balochistan.

Read the full story here.

 



Three security officials killed in Bajaur blast

Three Levies officials were killed while two other officials were wounded when an improvised explosive device (IED) blew up in Bajaur Agency while escorting polio teams in Salarzai area.

A political administration officer, Sahibzada was also injured in the blast.

Read the full story here.

Badin's first polio case surfaces, provincial toll rises to 24

A new polio case has surfaced in Badin, raising the total number of cases in Sindh to 24, creating fear among health workers that the virus is spreading in different areas of the province.

Read the full story here.

 



Rising numbers: Yet another polio case surfaces in FATA

As the Federally Administered Tribal Areas reported yet another polio case late Monday, the country’s total climbed to 237 this year.

According to officials of the health department, the latest child to fall victim to the crippling virus is seven-month-old Attiqur Rehman, son of Rahat Shah. The child is a resident of Chapari area in Lashora village of Jamrud, Khyber Agency.


Read the full story here.




An 11-month-old girl from Gul Bashar Kalay village in Bara tehsil of Khyber Agency is the latest child to have contracted the poliovirus in Pakistan, bringing the total number of reported cases in 2014 to 236.

 



No deadline given for polio-free Pakistan, clarifies PM House spokesperson

Determined to make Pakistan polio-free as soon as possible, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, however, had not set any deadline, Prime Minister House spokesperson clarified.

Read the full story here.

Crippling disease: Nawaz vows to root out polio in 6 months

Setting an ambitious target of completely eradicating polio from Pakistan in six months, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif directed all the provinces to take the anti-polio drive with seriousness and warned that any negligence would be considered as ‘crime against our future generations’.

Read the full story here.

Sabotaging the campaign: Anti- polio message resurfaces, this time in Charsadda

In a bid to sabotage the polio campaign, unidentified culprits pasted a pamphlet with an anti-polio vaccine message on the wall of a mosque in District Headquarters Hospital (DHQ) Charsadda.

Read the full story here.

 



‘International travellers’ best bet is to get polio injections’

People travelling from Pakistan to other countries should get polio vaccines injected into their blood stream instead of getting the drops, said immunisation expert Michelle Tanner.

Read the full story here.

Four polio cases confirmed in Balochistan, S Waziristan

Four new polio cases in Balochistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) were confirmed by the National Institute of Health (NIH) on Friday, pushing the total number of cases reported in the country this year so far to 235.

Read the full story here.

 



Four new polio cases sees Pakistan's tally jump to 231

For the first time in 16 years, the number of polio cases reported in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) has reached 150 as four more cases were confirmed.

Read the full story here.

Pakistan – polio's breeding ground: report

“Pakistan’s polio programme is a disaster,” a mere understatement, put quite simply by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI). Regrettably, this is the hopeless truth with Pakistan being home to 80% of the world’s polio cases in 2014.

The report comes weeks after Pakistan reported the highest number of polio cases in 14 years. This year so far, 220 cases have been confirmed, compared with 93 cases in the whole of last year, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Read the full story here.

 



Seven new polio cases put Pakistan total at 227

Seven new polio cases were reported in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Fata on Tuesday, taking the country’s total number of cases to 227 in 2014.

The National Institute of Health in Islamabad confirmed that seven infants were diagnosed with wild type-1 polio.

Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria are the only three countries where polio, which can cause paralysis and death, remains endemic.

Read the full story here.

 



PM Nawaz took six months to appoint official responsible for polio

Despite an alarming rise in the number of polio cases reported in Pakistan, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took six months to appoint an official responsible for the epidemic while a funding plan for the eradication was only approved last month.

“It’s frustrating. Eradicating polio is not rocket science,” said Elias Durry, head of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) polio campaign in Pakistan. “If we could have three to five months to have really good campaigns, then we could get rid of this disease,” he said. “We have been doing half-baked campaigns in high risk areas,” he said.

Read the full story here.

 



Pakistan advised to hand over eradication task to NDMA

Terming Pakistan’s polio eradication efforts ‘a disaster’, the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) has recommended that the charge of wiping out the crippling virus be immediately handed over to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).

In a report released on Saturday, the IMB – which independently assesses the progress of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative – put aside the Pakistan government’s claims of undertaking ‘all-out efforts’ to eradicate polio and noted that fewer children were being vaccinated in key areas of the country compared to two years ago.

Read the full story here.

India offers help to end polio in Pakistan

Meanwhile, India’s Minister for Health and Family Welfare Dr Harsh Vardhan has offered assistance to Pakistan’s government in its fight against the crippling poliovirus.

Dr Vardhan pointed out that though India was polio-free now, there was always the danger of the virus resurfacing as Pakistan accounts for 85% of the world’s polio cases.

Read the full story here.

 





 



With violent attacks on polio teams, 217 cases and a troubling mindset, exactly how far is Pakistan from eradicating polio on this World Polio Day? The country’s Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) estimates it is more than 500,000 children away.

Read the full story here



Concerns in Afghanistan are growing over new polio cases in border areas and in the displaced Pakistani population in Khost province.


Read the full story here



 



Jahanzeb Khan sits at a doctor’s clinic in Tehsil Headquarters (THQ) hospital, Shabqadar in Charsadda, collecting files from patients at the outpatient department before assigning them a waiting number.

Read the full story here



 



Polio may be a crippling disease, but it hasn’t stopped 17-year-old Abdullah Khan from being an ace student or winning a gold medal in table tennis at the fourth National Paralympics in May this year.

Read the full story here



 



Every polio team that sets foot in Metroville, SITE, knows 24-year-old Attaullah. He makes sure that he is with them every time they are in his neighbourhood for a polio drive—sometimes he helps them with directions and at others, he helps them administer the vaccine.

Read the full story here



 



Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met polio-affected children and and also administered polio vaccine drops.

The premier said a comprehensive communication strategy would be evolved to promote immunisation as a right of every child.

He added a focus group on polio had also been constituted to hold monthly meetings to assess the performance of the polio eradication program.

Read the full story here

 



Pakistan cricket captain Misbahul Haq Friday pledged his backing to the international bid to rid the world of polio.

The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) marks Friday as international polio day with Pakistan and Australia cricket teams dedicating the ongoing first Test to the fight to end the disease.

Read the full story here

 



Nadia Khan treasures two photos of her sister Sumbal: one showing her bright-eyed and smiling, the other blank-faced in death after she was gunned down by militants, a “martyr” in Pakistan’s desperate fight against polio.

It was May 2013 and Sumbal and her friend Shirafat were vaccinating children against the crippling disease at a rough mudbrick house in the village of Badaber in the country’s militant-plagued northwest.

Read the full story here

 



COMMENTS (17)

genesis | 9 years ago | Reply

It is sad to read about mullhas and ayotollahas dominating society and spreading false information.there will be whole generation of children which will suffer from this easily eradicable disease like small pox but will the mullahs allow.Of what use are nuclear weapons when simple virus or bacteria can wipe out a genration!

Ch. Allah Daad | 9 years ago | Reply

This is another worst thing which has happened to Faisalabad after anarchists adventure. Thank you Imran for bringing these murderers in our city.

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