Health Desk:
Pakistan reported a second poliovirus case within one week from North Waziristan on Friday. A two-year-old minor girl fell prey to the crippling virus, local health officials confirmed.
This is the fourth case of wild polio to be recorded globally in 2022 and the second in Pakistan which was reported on April 22 in the same district. This case has sent alarm bells among the polio volunteers battling the crippling virus across the country.
“Today, the Pakistan National Polio Laboratory at the NIH, Islamabad, has confirmed the detection of Type-1 Wild Poliovirus from the stool specimen from a 24-month-old girl from district North Waziristan, K-P. The girl had onset of paralysis on 14 April 2022,” an official statement said.
Pakistan had reported only one WPV1 case in 2021 which had onset of paralysis on 27 January in Killa Abdullah, Balochistan, it added. Fortunately, no polio case has been reported from Balochistan during last more than one year.
The statement said that genetic analysis of the new Type-1 Wild Poliovirus case shows that the virus belongs to the YB3C cluster and is linked to the poliovirus case reported last week.
“This indicates well-established wild poliovirus circulation within district North Waziristan,” it warned.
