Pakistan reported its second incidence of wild poliovirus on Friday, after a stool sample from a two-year-old child from the district of North Waziristan in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa tested positive, according to health officials.
This is the world’s fourth incidence of wild polio in 2022, and Pakistan’s second, which was reported on April 22 in the same district. “Today, the Pakistan National Polio Laboratory at the NIH, Islamabad, has confirmed the detection of Type-1 Wild Poliovirus from the stool specimen from a 24-month-old girl from district North Waziristan, K-P. The girl had onset of paralysis on 14 April 2022,” an official statement said.
The statement further added that Pakistan had reported only one WPV1 case in 2021 which had onset of paralysis on 27 January in Killa Abdullah, Balochistan.
“This indicates well-established wild poliovirus circulation within district North Waziristan.”
Pakistan, along with Afghanistan, is one of only two nations in the world where wild poliovirus is still circulating.
