Six-month-old diagnosed with polio despite being immunised in Punjab

TOBA TEK SINGH/LAHORE: A six-month-old girl has been diagnosed with the poliovirus even though she was administered with the vaccine for the deadly disease, reported The News.

The publication reported that Bashir Ahmad, a resident of Chak Akbar Sahu located near the River Ravi’s Head Sidhnai, had informed the provincial Health Department that his daughter's one leg had become paralysed. Following the report, the department sent a stool sample of the child to the National Institute of Health based in Islamabad, where the officials confirmed that the six-month-old had poliovirus Type-2.

District Health Authority Chief Executive Officer Dr Mumtaz Hussain, told The News, that in an inquiry they had later discovered that the baby had been immunised not just for polio but other epidemic diseases as well.

Following the report, Dr Mumtaz ordered an inspection of Pirmahal Tehsil’s Union Council 73 for the vaccine and found out that the other children in the area were also not immunized. He added that a special anti-polio vaccination drive has been launched in the union council while a special campaign has also started in all other tehsils of the district.

On the other hand, Punjab Polio Programme spokesman Wasif Mahmood denied the report of a new case in Toba Tek Singh. He told the publication that the infant was among the six cases of poliovirus Type-2 reported a couple of weeks ago from Faisalabad, Jhang and Toba Tek Singh districts.

However, when questioned about the vaccine, Mahmood dismissed the notion that there were problems in it. He instead blamed weak routine immunisation as the main reason for the emergence of poliovirus Type-2.

“Three districts of Faisalabad, Jhang and Toba Tek Singh have been specially marked with weak routine immunization,” Mahmood was quoted by The News.

12 cases reported in Punjab

The case of the six-month-old has taken Punjab’s total of children diagnosed with the type-2 of the virus to 12, while overall 62 cases have been reported countrywide in 2020.

In 2020 so far, 42 cases were confirmed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 12 in Punjab, seven in Sindh and one in Balochistan. Compared to the preceding years, only two cases of type-2 were confirmed in the country in 2015, one in 2016, none in 2017 and 2018, but a surge was reported in 2019.

National drive set to kick off from Sept 21

Punjab Polio Programme Incharge Sundas Irshad shared that a national polio vaccination drive will be launched on September 21.

“The campaign will help break the transmission of the virus,” she added.

The administration of the vaccine has already been suffering in the country because of the coronavirus, over 30 million children, including 18 million in Punjab alone, have not been administered with the vaccine.

Originally published in The News