Consistent efforts to make Pakistan polio-free country

PESHAWAR, Feb 14 : The pain of Abid Khan’s father continued unabated as he daily pushes his son on wheelchair to visit playground to watch children playing different games to get him amused as he fell prey to poliovirus in his childhood and paralyzed for life.
When football or cricket balls come closer to the wheelchair of disabled Abid at sports ground at village Dheri Ishaq in Nowshera district, he unintentionally tries to catch it but sometimes falls from in this effort, and his father Jamshed Khan supports him to settle down again in his wheelchair in relatively cold evenings.
Extremely saddened for his younger son, Jamsheed Khan said that he feels so sorry for his 31-year-old son for being unable to play like a normal child and always looks for others’ support.
“Poliovirus has badly affected my son at the age of three-year, when he took him to the doctor at Government Hospital Nowshera due to high fever, vomiting and constant pain in neck and limbs where he was diagnosed with polio, ” he recalled.
“It was like a lightening fall on me when doctor told that Abid will not walk for entire life as both of his legs were parlayed by the poliovirus,” the saddened father said, adding falling to misconception and propaganda against anti-polio vaccines have deprived him of healthy son for life.
The old father had been practicing to bring his son to the playground for the last 27 years on his request by leaving work in agriculture fields ahead of time.
Like Abid, the polio virus continued attacking the under five-year old children in the country where 73 kids were paralyzed last year.
According to Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) KP, one polio case was reported on January 22 this year from the country and 73 in 2024, six in 2023, 20 in 2022 and one in 2021. The lone positive polio case (WPV-I) was reported from DI Khan Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on January 22, 2025.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan are most vulnerable to polio cases with 22 and 27 positive cases reported last year apparently due to mass migration, security challenges, limiting supervision and oversights in the past, resulting restricting access to vulnerable population especially in high risk remote areas and exposing security personnel to attacks.
Once in the spotlight in the world for polio virus following reports of about 20,000 cases per year in early 1990, there was a great hope that Pakistan was going to be declared a polio free country after a report of one case from Balochistan on January 27, 2021. However, the report of 73 cases last year from Pakistan showed that wild polio virus (WPV-I) was still circulating in the country mostly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan and its eradication was still a big challenge.
Dr Samiullah Khan, head of children department, Government hospital Mardan said that polio was a highly contagious disease that mostly invades the nervous system of malnutrition children under five-year of age and spreads quickly through feco-oral route.
“The dangerous virus leads to permanent paralysis and its victim can’t even move parts of his body and even causes death.” He said that over 100 million children are immunized every year before their first birthday in world and about 24 million under one-year age i.e. 20 percent were deprived of vaccines due to various reasons including refusal.
Terming the anti-polio vaccine a safe option, he said the vaccines prevent two to three million deaths every year in world including Pakistan and can save an additional two million children due to improvement of global coverage.
“The oral polio vaccine (OPV) and inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) contributes in weakening and killing of poliovirus as the former saved over five million children from permanent paralysis,” he said.
Following a report of 350,000 polio cases from 125 endemic countries in 1998, the World Health Assembly had expressed strong resolve to eradicate polio from the globe and today the entire world except Pakistan and Afghanistan were declared polio-free.
“The main reason behind the report of high polio cases in vulnerable districts of KP were mostly refusal of vaccination by parents, misconception against the vaccine and high rate of illiteracy,” he said.
Ziaur Rehman, Spokesperson of Pakistan Polio Eradication Program said that despite resurgence of polio cases in 2024, Pakistan has achieved significant progress in reversing the epidemiological trends of the crippling virus by reducing its genetic diversity.
He said the number of circulating poliovirus variants have been successfully reduced from 12 in 2020 to just two, marking a major milestone in the country’s fight against polio.
“In 2020, we had found 12 genetic clusters of poliovirus against which 10 were completely eradicated while solid efforts are on to wipe out remaining two circulating variants i.e YB3A4A and YB3A4B, belonging to the Wild Poliovirus Type 1 (WPV1) soon.”
YB3C, an indigenous poliovirus of the region, was eradicated in 2023 from the country, he said, confirming that this variant had not been detected in environmental samples collected from 88 districts over the past 15 months.
Among the six WPV1-infected cases and 126 WPV1-positive Environmental Sampling reported in 2023, nine belonged to groups of viruses derived from the YB3C cluster which has now been completely eradicated.
“This is a commendable success of Government ongoing battle against polio, indicating that the disease is on its last legs in Pakistan,” Zia remarked.
Pakistan’s progress has received acknowledgment by the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) during its recent meeting held in Islamabad on January 26, 2025.
The federal government launched a nationwide campaign on Monday last to immunize over 45 million children under five-year of age across Pakistan.
Ayesha Farooq, Prime Minister’s Focal Person for Polio Eradication has recently visited Peshawar where she discussed with Chief Secretary KP about the arrangements made for the success of ongoing polio campaign in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
As part of government’s efforts, more than 33 million children under five-year of age were vaccinated during September 2024 campaign in 116 districts of Pakistan including KP with the help of nearly 400,000 trained workers.
She sought cooperation of religious scholars, media, politicians, LG representatives and tribal elders in nullifying misconceptions against anti-polio vaccine for the safe future of children.