KARACHI:Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for Polio in Sindh on Monday confirmed a new polio case from Karachi, Landhi UC 1, taking the cases tally to 19 in Sindh and 57 in Pakistan in 2020 so far.
According to details, a 60 months male child in Karachi was diagnosed with the polio virus after his stool samples were sent to NIH following developing weakness in his left upper and lower limb. According to parents, the child had received OPV on multiple occasion while the routine immunization card showed zero doses of OPV and no IPV. Further investigation into the claims is ongoing.
EOC Sindh Spokesperson told PPI that Sindh had back to back successful campaigns from December 2019 to March 2020 which had gone a long way to put the polio programme on track. However, the global polio eradication initiative had to be halted since the outbreak of COVID-19 and no campaigns could be conducted since.
He said: “As we move forward, EOC is planning a small-scale campaign in Karachi in July followed by a wide-scale campaign in the province in August to protect children from polio. The details of for the upcoming campaigns are under discussion and information will be provided once the decisions are finalized.”
“While we deal with the pandemic, we must also deal with childhood immunization and we will deliver these campaigns with the safety of all stakeholders in mind. Children can be saved from childhood diseases like polio through vaccination and we seek the media’s help to raise awareness regarding this once we have the plan to resume campaigns,” he added.