In a bid to commemorate the fight against poliomyelitis and to pay tribute to Jonas Salk, American medical researcher and virologist, who led the first team that developed a vaccine against poliomyelitis, the World Polio Day 2015 is being commemorated around the globe on October 24 (today). Pakistan is one of the two remaining countries in the world where polio is still categorised as an endemic viral infection, the other being Afghanistan.
As of October 2015, there have been 38 documented cases of wild poliovirus in Pakistan in the past year. Though the polio immunisation campaign in the country started in 1974, the efforts for eradication officially started in 1994. The infection remains endemic despite over 100 rounds of vaccination being carried out in the past decade. Pakistan had the world's highest number of polio cases in 2014, and as of October 2015.
Director General Health Services Punjab Dr Zahid Pervaiz said that polio has been declared a national emergency and a dedicated team of professionals in the Emergency Operation Centre in the provincial health directorate is working hard to achieve the targets. He said that Punjab has made serious progress over the last two years and with other variables in control, polio eradication may well be in sight within one year.
The World Polio Day gives us an opportunity to renew our pledge to work with more dedication. Dr Zahid Pervaiz further said that we have introduced inactivated injectable polio vaccine (IPV) for children above 14 weeks of age in routine immunisation. Further Punjab will also switch to bOPV to tOPV by April 2016. In 2014, Punjab registered just four cases out of a total of 306 in the country. In the year 2015, there has been only one case so far out of 38 in the country, he added.
The DG Health further said that with use of android-based tailor-made application E-vaccs with support from the PITB, Punjab has been able to boost its routine immunisation to 70 percent from mid 50s within a year. He said that thousands of travellers move in and out of Punjab to reservoir areas all through the year. Then there are seasonal migrants in bordering areas, who come for a short time. Even though permanent transit points have been set up at strategic routes, the movement of population at such a scale poses a set of unique challenges, he added. Dr Zahid said that without a countrywide polio eradication campaign, keeping Punjab a polio free province is a tough task.
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