Over 62,000 parents refuse Polio vaccine in January drive

ISLAMABAD: In the nation-wide polio vaccination campaign from January 02-29 over 62 thousand parents refused vaccination to their children, citing sources ARY News reported on Monday.

The anti-polio campaign, which was held in January in three phases, 62,411 parents refused to administer polio vaccine to their children.

Most of the parents who refused polio vaccine to their children were belong to Sindh, according to sources. In Sindh 37,008 parents refused polio vaccine, while in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 20,305 parents refused vaccine administration.

Moreover, in Balochistan 4,902 parents, in Islamabad 141 families and in Punjab 36 parents refused polio vaccine administration to their children.

According to the figures shared by the authorities in Karachi East 2.4 percent, Korangi district 1.2 pct, Karachi South 1.1 pct, Keamari district 1.3 pct, Karachi Central 1.7 pct and in Malir district 0.9 pct parents refused vaccine in the polio vaccination campaign, sources said.

In Hyderabad district 0.2 pct families’ refused administration of polio vaccine to their children.

The drive was started after sewage samples in Lahore tested positive for wild poliovirus in January.

According to the national polio lab at the National Institute of Health, the first positive sample of 2023 was detected on January 19 and was genetically linked to the poliovirus found in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan in November 2022.

This was the first evidence of cross-border transmission in more than a year. The second positive sample was reported on January 27, which was genetically linked to a virus circulating in southern KP.

Pakistan has not reported a human polio case since September 2022, after 20 children were paralyzed in an outbreak in southern KP. However, there has been consistent evidence of the presence of the virus as the programme conducts active disease surveillance while in January the virus was detected twice in sewage samples from Lahore.