Islamabad, Feb 28 (IANS) The National Institute of Health (NIH) of Pakistan has confirmed two more Wild Poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases of 2025.
According to an NIH statement, the Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the institute confirmed one case each from southern Sindh province and eastern Punjab province.
“This is the third polio case from Sindh and the first from Punjab this year,” said the statement, adding that five polio cases have been reported in the country so far in 2025.
A total of 74 polio cases were reported in Pakistan last year.
Last week, in another incident of health workers being attacked in Pakistan, unknown gunmen had killed a police officer while he was providing security to the polio vaccination team in Damadola, Mamund, Bajaur district of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
As per Bajaur police officials, gunmen on motorbikes attacked the polio vaccination team which was engaged in a door-to-door vaccination campaign to give polio drops to children. The police official deployed to guard the polio team was shot dead by the attackers who later fled the scene.
Earlier this month, a policeman assigned to ensure security of polio workers was shot dead in Jamrud, another district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Hundreds of polio workers have been targetted and killed by militants over the last few decades in Pakistan. As per statistics, over 200 polio workers have been killed in Pakistan since the 1990s and the number continues to rise as militants intensify their attacks.
Various militant groups assert that polio vaccination campaigns are part of a western conspiracy to sterilize children.
This has spread concern among locals who fear for their lives if they get their children vaccinated.
Pakistan has struggled to eradicate polio virus for decades now. Pakistan and Afghanistan remain as the only two countries in the world where polio cases still keep emerging.
During 2024, Pakistan reported at least 73 cases of polio virus. Of these, 27 cases were from Balochistan, 22 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 22 from Sindh province and one each from Punjab and the federal capital Islamabad.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had launched the first polio vaccination drive of the year on February 2 with an aim to vaccinate at least 44.2 million children under the age of five.
–IANS
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