Published October 10,2024
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Pakistan has witnessed a fast enhance in new polio instances in current weeks, stoking fears of a resurgence of the crippling illness after a pointy decline final yr, officers stated on Thursday.
The new polio instances from the South Asian nation doubled to 32 to date this yr in a month with numbers going up notably within the unstable south-western province of Balochistan close to the Afghan border, in response to the official information.
Pakistan managed to scale back new polio instances to solely six final yr – down from a peak of 147 in 2019 – with the assistance of a door-to-door vaccination drive collectively funded and aided by the UN and the Gates Foundation.
“But once again this year has been a huge disappointment,” stated Doctor Nadeem Shah, an official on the nation’s polio eradication programme.
Half of the 32 new instances this yr have come from Balochistan the place many mother and father refused vaccinations and well being staff cannot attain communities attributable to violence in some areas, Shah added.
Pakistan undertakes periodic immunization drives, however marketing campaign staff are sometimes focused by the Islamist militants linked to al-Qaeda and affiliated Taliban.
The militants and a few Islamic clerics declare that the polio vaccination marketing campaign is a ploy by the West to sterilize Muslims.
Source: www.anews.com.tr