Crippling disease: ‘Polio checkpost’ inaugurated in Rahim Yar Khan

Thousands of children in other provinces have not been vaccinated

LAHORE: Adviser to Chief Minister on Health Khwaja Salman Rafique on Friday inaugurated a checkpost at Kot Sabzal, Rahim Yar Khan, to administer polio drops to children coming to the province from Sindh.

This is the fifth such checkpost set up to vaccinate children entering the Punjab from other provinces. Earlier, the facility has been introduced at Attock Bridge; Pir Wadhai, Rawalpindi; Badami Bagh, Lahore, and Dera Ghazi Khan.

Health authorities say 279 cases of polio virus have been reported in the country this year. Of these, 169 cases have been reported in the FATA, 60 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 27 in Sindh, 17 in Balochistan and three in the Punjab.

In the Punjab, the cases were reported in Bhakkar, Sheikhupura and Chakwal.

About the detection of virus in environmental samples taken from four places in Lahore, the adviser said the virus detected in sewage was genetically similar to one found in Peshawar earlier. He said that no cases of polio had been reported in the city although the environmental samples had detected the presence of the virus.

He said the genetic link of two polio cases reported in Chakwal and Bhakkar had been traced to Dera Ismail Khan and Waziristan.

He said the population of the Punjab was higher than the combined population of other three provinces; the number of children up to five years in the province is 27.5 million.

He said a large number of people from other provinces visited the Punjab daily. Thousands of children in other areas, including Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, had not been administered polio vaccine. He said adults from such areas could also be carrier of the virus. The adviser said an anti-polio campaign was going on in 74 ‘high-risk’ union councils of Lahore over the last three months. He said a national campaign against polio would be launched on December 8. He said a low transmission season of polio virus had started and the government was striving to eliminate the virus by taking benefit of this opportunity.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 6^th, 2014.