Health minister: 90 percent of Pakistan’s cases of polio are “imported” from Afghanistan.
Interim Health Minister Dr. Nadeem Jan has stated that 90% of Pakistan’s poliovirus infections were “imported from Afghanistan” as the country continues to experience an upsurge in poliovirus cases.
Just one day after the third case of the year was reported, two more samples tested positive for the poliovirus in the nation.
Sewage samples taken from Dera Bugti in Balochistan and Peshawar, according to a representative of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) polio laboratory, tested positive for the virus. Both viruses, which were discovered in sewage samples, resemble the poliovirus in Afghanistan.
Only Pakistan and Afghanistan continue to have an endemic polio virus. Authorities claim that only seven districts in the southern part of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including Tank, Bannu, North Waziristan, South Waziristan Upper, South Waziristan Lower, Dera Ismail Khan, and Lakki Marwat, are still experiencing wild poliovirus transmission.
According to a World Health Organisation study published in August, all cases of polio documented since January 2021 have originated from the seven districts in southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that are endemic for the disease.
After three further cases were recorded in Peshawar, Bannu, and Dera Bugti in Balochistan earlier this week, the total number of cases in Pakistan this year grew to five.
The government has started a five-day polio immunisation campaign with a target population of 44 million kids nationwide. The campaign to give youngsters aged 0 to 5 years anti-polio vaccination drops would involve some 350,000 polio workers.
The health minister said in an interview with Dawn News’ “Doosra Rukh,” which will air tonight at 7 p.m., regarding the rising number of polio cases: “Our surveillance is optimal.
Ninety percent of the 34 samples we’ve received have originated in Afghanistan. Even less than 10% of us are our own,” he claimed.
Dr. Jan emphasised the danger of this and the importance of vaccination. Otherwise, he cautioned, “the imported virus would keep spreading and finally become our own.
The minister said that failure to deliver polio immunisations was the cause of the latest cases recorded in KP.
Dr. Jan also mentioned during the interview that the government has started working to put an end to the production of phoney medications. He claimed that although a system for verifying the barcodes of medications had been created, its implementation would present some difficulties.
The minister claimed that both the Health Department and the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan were doing their share to stop the selling of fraudulent medications.
There have been some errors. Nevertheless, he added that crackdowns had started on the malpractices, “but we have started efforts to eliminate [the network of fake medicines], but the solution is to empower the public.”
Dr. Jan stated it was a political problem in response to a query about the involvement of the health ministry in the return of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who is rumoured to return to the nation on October 21.
