ISLAMABAD: On Saturday, 17 days after the victim passed away, Quetta reported the fifth incidence of polio for the year. This highlights a serious surveillance failure and raises the possibility of transmission at a critical point in the polio eradication effort.
Six weeks had passed since the case’s paralysis began on April 29 before it was verified on June 8, highlighting a significant diagnostic gap. The leadership of the anti-polio program has a significant task in stopping the spread of the disease as the peak transmission season draws near.
An official at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Regional Reference Laboratory stated that the most recent victim was a two-year-old kid who died prior to the poliovirus being confirmed, taking six weeks as opposed to the typical three weeks for diagnosis. The dead lived in Quetta’s UC Tameer-i-Nau, near the Ganj Bypass.
“The infant had diarrhea and vomiting, according to the patient’s attendant, so he was sent to a Quetta private hospital for treatment. On April 29, ten days later, the patient began to experience bilateral lower limb weakness. The weakness was slight at first, but it eventually worsened and extended to the upper limbs. After that, the boy was brought to NICH in Karachi, where doctors admitted him and diagnosed him with acute flaccid paralysis (AFP). Sadly, on May 22, the youngster passed away. The official stated that the virus was isolated from samples that belonged to the imported WPV1 YB3A cluster.
Three contacts’ worth of samples were gathered since the case was insufficient. One was gathered from a cousin residing in the same home, while the other two were from the siblings. One brother’s and the cousin’s stool samples had WPV1. Before the onset of paralysis, there was no history of travel to any other district during the previous 35 days, the official stated.
The official stated in response to a question that the youngster had not gotten a single dose of the polio vaccine during normal immunization and that the possibility that this was an instance of vaccine refusal was being looked into. Records, however, indicate that he had five vaccination doses during supplemental immunization campaigns.
The example serves as a heartbreaking reminder that no child anywhere will be totally secure from the devastating disease until Pakistan achieved polio eradication, according to Dr. Malik Mukhtar Bharath, the prime minister’s coordinator on national health services.
The National Emergency Operations Centre for Polio Eradication’s coordinator, Muhammad Anwarul Haq, stated that a case investigation was in progress to determine the origin of the virus that caused the infection and locate any possible vaccination coverage gaps, with a focus on populations that might not have received polio vaccinations.
