Is country about to win polio battle?
EXPERTS POINT TO POSITIVE SIGNS FOR ERADICATION DRIVE, OF WHICH UAE HAS BEEN STAUNCH ALLY
The country’s polio programme has made substantial gains in 2021 with only one wild poliovirus case and eight type 2 cases reported this year as of October. In comparison, 84 cases of wild poliovirus infection were reported last year besides 135 children who came down with type 2 virus transmission.
Is the country on the verge of finally eliminating polio then? While there is a significant decrease in cases but the country “cannot celebrate any success yet and rather consider this a golden opportunity for Pakistan to intensify our concerted efforts to achieve polio eradication”, said Dr Shahzad Baig, the key health official supervising the polio programme.
The 99 per cent decline in wild poliovirus type 1 cases indicates that “Pakistan is on the right track to achieve polio eradication however the current gains are fragile as the country has been at this point twice before but was unable to curtail the virus” shared Dr Shahzad Baig, coordinator at the national emergency operations centre, Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI), in an interview with Gulf News. Pakistan needs to “redouble efforts to ensure zero new cases by reaching every child with the polio vaccine.”
Intensified campaigns
To be certified as a polio-free country, Pakistan is required to report that there were no children affected by the wild poliovirus over a period of three years.
Over 40 million children under five years of age were vaccinated with the polio vaccine during the third nationwide immunisation campaign in September 2021 as health workers went door to door to protect Pakistani children from the crippling disease. The first two countrywide vaccination campaigns this year in January and April reached more than 80 million children.
There are three distinct wild poliovirus strains. Wild poliovirus type 3 has been globally eradicated. Pakistan is affected by wild poliovirus type
1 (WPV1) and circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2). All three strains are symptomatically identical as they cause irreversible paralysis or even death, according to experts.
Government pledge
The cVDPVs occur when immunisation coverage is low or vaccination activities are poorly conducted and fail to reach enough children. “If all children are vaccinated, there would be no outbreaks of any strain of polio. With no children left to infect, the virus would simply die away” Dr Baig said.
The fact that Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where polio cases are being reported warrants extraordinary efforts.
Prime Minister Imran Khan says that his government is committed to make the country polio-free. To address the health risk, the government recently approved the use of the novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) for the first time. It is also administered via two oral drops and is considered to be safe and effective in providing
immunity against polio. Detailing some of the specific strategies to eradicate polio, Dr Baig said that the health officials are “working hard to consolidate gains and reach the last child with vaccines.”
The UAE has been one of the long-time supporters of Pakistan’s polio eradication programme and has provided $200 million since 2014. The UAE’s $23 million grant delivered this year is helping Pakistan’s efforts to protect 16 million children under five years from polio in the country’s 84 highest-risk districts.