ISLAMABAD: The News reported on Sunday that a youngster from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s District Dera Ismail Khan (DI Khan) had been proven to have paralysis, marking another setback in Pakistan’s fight against polio.
With this most recent instance, there are now 48 Wild Poliovirus Type-1 (WPV1) occurrences nationwide this year, with 10 of those cases occurring in the northwest province.
Noting the boy from DI Khan, an area still struggling with recurrent polio transmission, the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Islamabad’s Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication verified the infection on Saturday.
Samples taken from the infant are presently being genetically sequenced in order to identify patterns of transmission and assist with focused immunization campaigns.
This case comes after another discovery made on Friday of this week.