Sewerage sample: Poliovirus detected in Killa Abdullah

QUETTA: Health authorities in Balochistan have detected traces of poliovirus in sewerage samples from Killa Abdullah district that borders Afghanistan, a stark warning that the crippling disease is still endemic in the province.

The Technical Advisory Group (TAG), a global body for polio, has suggested Balochistan government to focus its anti-polio efforts on Killa Abdullah - a high-risk district with regards to the presence of poliovirus and refusal of the local community to allow vaccinators to administer vaccine to children.



The WHO doctors took sewerage samples from the border town of Chaman in Killa Abdullah last month which were brought to the laboratory in Quetta, officials at Emergency Operation Centre for Polio confirmed.

“The incumbent report indicates the vulnerable condition of fresh polio case in the region, the provincial government should take precautions to halt the spread of virus,” TAG said in a statement.

Killa Abdullah was among the sensitive areas of the country where poliovirus was still active. As many as seven polio cases were reported in Balochistan last year, of which two were from this area.

It may be mentioned here that the recent cases of polio reported in Karachi and the Kandahar city of Afghanistan also pose a threat to Balochistan as the province is on the route of migrant Afghan population travelling to and from Pakistan.

A three-day anti-polio campaign is going to start from Feb 15 to 17 in some 15 districts of Balochistan. Around 1634,261 children below the age of five years will be vaccinated during the anti-polio campaign.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 9^th,  2016.