KARACHI: Chief Minister Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah on Monday said that no polio case has been reported in the province during 2021 so far as he launched an immunization campaign to eliminate the crippling disease, ARY NEWS reported.
The chief minister launched the polio campaign in the province and administered drops to children at a government dispensary in the Sultanabad area of the city.
Speaking after administering the drops, Murad Ali Shah said that the polio immunization campaign will continue in the province until June 13.
“No polio case has been reported in the province this year so far, contrary to the previous year when 22 cases were reported,” he said adding that overall 84 cases were reported in the country last year. “Even Balochistan has reported a single polio case this year,” he said.
The chief minister said that Pakistan is the second country after Afghanistan, where polio cases are still being reported. “The immunization campaign will cover 30 districts of the province,” he said out of nine million children under the age of five, two million are present in Karachi alone.
It is pertinent to mention here that a report recently noted that the poliovirus has vanished from most parts of the country in recent tests of the sewage samples.
According to sources, 93 percent of sewage samples collected from four provinces of the country found clear of the polio virus.
It is the second instance in two months when over 90 pct sewage samples are found free from the virus of the crippling disease. The extensive environmental surveillance established by the Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme collects sewage water samples to detect the polio virus across the country.
