ISLAMABAD: Pakistani health authorities announced on Thursday they had detected poliovirus traces in four new environmental samples collected during the month of August, bringing the total count of positive specimens to 21 this year.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries worldwide where polio remains a looming threat to the well-being of children. There have been only two confirmed cases of polio in Pakistan this year, which authorities say signals progress in the polio endgame, although positive environmental samples are still being detected in several parts of the country.
“Pakistan’s National Polio Laboratory [...] has confirmed the detection of Type-1 wild poliovirus (WPV1) in four environmental (sewage) samples collected in August 2023, three from District Peshawar and one from District Karachi’s Keamari,” a statement from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Islamabad said.
Ten positive poliovirus environmental samples have been collected from Peshawar this year, with several of the samples sharing genetic links with clusters identified in Afghanistan.
In Karachi, a positive environmental sample, also genetically linked to a cluster in Afghanistan's Nangarhar-Batikot province, was collected from Muhammad Khan Colony in the Keamari area. The discovery increases the total number of positive samples collected from the city to two this year.
Pakistan organized a polio eradication campaign in 65 districts of the country from August 7 to 13 to vaccinate over eight million children under the age of five.
