PESHAWAR: Pakistan has recorded 2024 year as one of its worst years for the ongoing battle against polio in recent times.
According to figures from Pakistan’s polio eradication programme, 68 cases of polio have been recorded in 2024, compared with only six at the same time in 2023. This figure is more than 2.5 times higher when compared to cases reported during the past three years( 2023, 22, and 2021).
It is a major setback for a country that as recently as 2021 saw only one case in total, following a period of more than 15 months without any documented cases.
Pakistan’s fight against polio
In 2021, authorities had envisioned Pakistan becoming polio-free in the next three years, a goal that initially seemed achievable. Everything was seemingly on track for polio eradication as the cases had decreased significantly, dropping from 147 in 2019 to 84 in 2020.
However, the numbers have since risen again.
Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan are two countries where polio remains endemic. According to WHO, Afghanistan has so far reported 23 cases this year.
Data from the Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme shows that in 2024, 27 cases have been reported in Balochistan, 19 in Sindh, 20 in KP, and one each in Punjab and the country’s capital, Islamabad. The capital has reported the polio case after 16 years.
In 2023, Pakistan had reported only six polio cases, 70 percent less than the total cases reported in 2022.
The health authorities carried out nationwide the last anti-polio drive of 2024 in mid-December in 143 districts of the country to inoculate 44 million children under the age of 5.
Recently, Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif reiterated to make Pakistan a polio-free country and said that the federation along with all the provinces were taking steps at polio eradication.
He said all the provinces had been taken into confidence over the polio eradication measure and together they would efface the disease.
