Published: 07:24 PM, 26 January 2025
First polio case of 2025 detected in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province
Pakistan has reported its first polio case of 2025 from Dera Ismail Khan of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, according to an official statement issued on last Wednesday.
“On Wednesday, January 22, 2025, the lab confirmed one polio case from DI Khan. The onset of the case was on January 7, 2025, making it the first WPV1 [Wild poliovirus type 1] case of 2025,” the National Emergency Operations Centre said in the statement.
As many as 11 polio cases were reported from DI Khan in 2024 while 73 cases in total were confirmed throughout the country with 27 from Balochistan, 22 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 22 from Sindh, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
Pakistan is one of the last two countries in the world, alongside Afghanistan, where polio remains endemic because of challenges like security issues, vaccine hesitancy, and misinformation.
The first nationwide vaccination campaign against poliovirus of the year will begin on February 3 in a bid to tackle the worrying rise in cases of the disease.
To counter the resurgence, the Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme, in collaboration with the Expanded Program on Immunisation (EPI), continues to conduct nationwide mass vaccination campaigns.
>> Source: The Nation
