Making headway: Two sewage samples from ‘polio reservoir’ test negative

These were randomly collected from sewers of Larma, Shaheen Muslim Town areas.

PESHAWAR:

The National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad revealed on Thursday that samples of sewage water tested negative for the poliovirus in the provincial capital.

Two samples were randomly collected from the sewers of union councils Larma and Shaheen Muslim Town, which are known as high-risk areas for the poliovirus. The samples, this time round, tested negative for wild poliovirus type-1.

The focal person for the Chief Minster’s Polio Monitoring Cell, Imtiaz Ali Shah, told The Express Tribune this is the first time since July 2012 that such samples have tested negative for the crippling virus from these sites.

NIH has been collecting samples of sewage water throughout the district every month since June 2010 and with a few exceptions, the city has tested positive for the virus ever since.

One such exception was reported by the NIH on July 7, 2012 where it revealed that no trace of the poliovirus was found in Peshawar’s sewers. But this was short-lived; over the next few months the health authority maintained Peshawar was still home to the virus.

Tests conducted in February 2014 shine the first positive light since; a first sign of encouragement for a city which has been in vaccination overdrive.

The monitoring cell declared it a “remarkable” achievement given the reputation the city gained after the World Health Organization (WHO) labelled it as “the largest reservoir of endemic poliovirus in the world”.

A notification from the cell echoed these sentiments: “This is a positive step towards the goal of eradicating polio from the province.”

Rusty pipelines have ensured that sewage water and drinking water frequently mix, which leaves children in the district exposed to the virus. The latest report comes, at the very least, as a sigh of relief as the lack of presence of poliovirus in sewage water reduces the possibility of contagion through the oral-fecal route.

The WHO reported in January that more than 90% of the current polio cases in the country were genetically linked to Peshawar, which means that for complete eradication of the virus from the city there’s still a long way to go.

From the reservoir to restricted access

Even as the Expanded Programme for Immunization, WHO, UNICEF, the Gates Foundation and the provincial government battle the virus in Peshawar, the stranglehold of the polio outbreak is first North Waziristan Agency (NWA) and then other agencies of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) such as Khyber.

In 2013, at least 35 diagnoses of polio were made in just NWA.

This year, before the second month comes to a close, at least 19 cases have been confirmed in Fata alone, three in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

With military strikes in the tribal area and yet another exodus from Fata to the settled areas, the question on containment arises as access tightens even more. From transit posts where children under five are administered oral polio vaccine drops (OPV) as they travel to safe havens to voluntary vaccinations in NWA whereby tribal elders visit tehsil hospitals to stock up on OPVs for their young ones – something is being done to combat polio but is yet to prove sufficient enough.

The other city in Pakistan where environmental samples have been a cause for concern is Karachi, share experts.

While terms and phrases such as ‘polio reservoirs’ are daunting, polio specialists insist – and India proves – the virus is by no means undefeatable.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2014.