NIH finds presence of polio virus in Hyderabad's sewage

4,600 refusal cases surfaced during the four-day anti-polio drive in Hyderabad

HYDERABAD: With around 4,600 refusal cases emerging during the four-day anti-polio drive in Hyderabad, a report of National Institute of Health (NIH) has found, for the fourth consecutive month, presence of the virus in the district's sewage. The refusal cases have increased from around 3,000 in the last campaign.

"The polio teams were even threatened in some areas and forcefully expelled from others," said the focal person of the anti-polio campaign, Dr Muhammad Ali. "In the union councils 16 and 17 of Latifabad, the polio teams were given death threats".

According to him, the teams are facing resistance mostly in the Pushtun-populated areas. The police also detained two persons for manhandling the teams, but the suspects were later released after they submitted in writing that they will not resist the teams in the next campaign.

The district administration and the health authorities had set a target of 340,000 children, of under five years of age, for the four-day immunisation which concluded on April 25. The district's bureaucracy and the health authorities called an emergency meeting on Thursday evening to review the campaign.

Meanwhile, according to a report, the NIH detected the polio virus in Hyderabad's Tulsi Das pumping station for the fourth consecutive month this year. The samples were collected by the surveillance officer of the World Health Organization and the health department.

The health officials informed that the test results of the samples collected from Tulsi Das pumping station had shown the presence of the virus. The District Health Officer Dr Nasreen Memon confirmed the findings.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 26^th, 2019.