According to Health department officials a 10-year-old boy from Lahore has been infected with the virus thus bringing the tally to nine.
“Samples were collected on April 2 and sent to Islamabad for confirmation. The virus belongs to an Outfall Pumping Station in Lahore,” said an official deputed in the polio laboratory of the National Institute of Health.
“It is worrying that for the second time this year a 10-year-old boy has been infected with the polio virus,” the lab official remarked
“This is why it was decided that polio vaccine would be administered to children of up to age of 10 years in core reservoirs including Rawalpindi and Peshawar. However, because of refusals in Peshawar we were unable to do so,” he said, referring to the recent vaccination campaign issues in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The Prime Minister’s Focal Person on Polio Eradication, Babar bin Atta, confirmed the news to a private news outlet.
Mr Atta said, “It is unfortunate that for four years, the previous Punjab government remained in a state of denial regarding the presence of polio virus. There was no one to take the ownership of the [polio eradication] programme. Though the polio virus was being reported from Lahore but the Punjab government would say that the virus belonged to Peshawar. But we could also have turned around and said that the virus in Peshawar originates in Afghanistan and not take ownership of the issue. We have to take steps to eradicate it [virus].”
Responding to a question about the increase in refusal rates, he said, “It is proof that the communication strategy for the polio vaccination programme has failed. We must remove the concerns of parents and need to come up with a better communication strategy.”
The categorization of the nine polio cases that have been reported so far is as follows: two each from Lahore and Bannu, one each from Hangu, Waziristan, Bajaur, Khyber Tribal district and Karachi.
