Two children fall prey to poliovirus in Balochistan

Cases take the tally of crippling disease to 23 in province and 79 across country in 2020

QUETTA:

Two more polio cases surfaced in Balochistan on Saturday, after less than a month of countrywide campaign conducted against the virus, taking the tally of the crippling disease to 23 in Balochistan and 79 across the country in 2020.

A four-year-old boy was diagnosed with poliovirus in Chitan town of Quetta while another 15-month-old child was also tested positive for the crippling disease in Barshor tehsil of district Pishin.

The provincial health department apprised the samples of the affected children were taken a few days ago and the laboratory reports confirmed they had contracted poliovirus.

Polio cases have been reported from various districts of the province while Quetta, Pishin and Qilla Abdullah were declared sensitive districts because of the presence of the virus and refusal of thousands of parents to administer drops to children making them more vulnerable to contracting the illness.

On September 21, a four-day anti-polio drive kicked off in Balochistan targeting to administer anti-polio drops to 2.5 million children under the age of five across 33 districts of the province.

According to Balochistan’s Coordinator of Emergency Operation Centre (CEOC) Rashid Razzaq 10,585 teams, including 8,988 Mobile teams, 941 fixed and 594 transit teams, were deployed to vaccinate children across the province to make sure that all children were administered with polio drops.

After a countrywide campaign on a large scale the rising cases of poliovirus were alarming while earlier the drive had been suspended across the country due to the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic.

In a statement issued by the provincial authorities over the recent cases of the virus, Razzad appealed parents to ensure the administration of anti-polio drops to children.

So far the virus has been eradicated across the world except Pakistan and Afghanistan while Africa, the epicentre of the virus paralysing thousands of children 25 years ago, has been declared free from the illness by an independent body.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 18^th, 2020.