Pakistan has revealed two new instances of poliovirus that were discovered in environmental samples taken from Peshawar and Faisalabad last month.
Type-1 Wild Poliovirus is the cause of the two new cases (WPV1). Pakistan’s National Polio Laboratory verified this.
The positive environmental sample was taken on November 7, 2022, from the “Pumping Station-3 Achikaira,” according to National Institute of Health authorities who provided information on the latest positive environmental sample in Faisalabad. It was the city’s first confirmed incidence of the poliovirus in 2022.
Prior to this incident, a positive sample from the area was discovered on April 5, 2021, although it had an orphan viral strain. The final instance of the wild poliovirus, nevertheless, was recorded in 2008. A week-long anti-poliovirus campaign has been going on throughout the district as of November 28.
Similar to this, Type-1 Wild Poliovirus (WPV1) was also found in an environmental sample taken in November 2022 from Peshawar (Naray Khuwar location). In the district, the final case of the wild poliovirus was recorded in July 2020. There are 460,511 people living in the seven union councils that the site serves, including 67,791 children under the age of five. The district’s most recent anti-poliovirus programme took place from October 24 to 30. The district will hold the next election from December 5 to December 11.
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