Traces of polio virus found in Hyderabad sewage lines

The Express Tribune

The district administration has declared a polio emergency in Hyderabad after discovering traces of the virus in sewage lines of some parts of the city. The alarming announcement was made by health officials at a meeting chaired by the deputy commissioner, Agha Shahnawaz Babur, on Thursday. They added that samples collected from some sewage pumping stations showed presence of the virus. “The samples collected from the area of Tulsi Das pumping station tested positive,” said the district health officer, Aslam Pecheho. Babur criticised health officials in the meeting, asking why over 120 vaccination drives had failed to win the city the recognition of being polio free. “This is an alarming situation for the citizens. We can’t expose our children to this crippling disease,” he said. The revelation comes amid international warnings of stringent checks on Pakistanis travelling abroad and the World Health Organisation’s public disapproval about the progress of an anti-polio drive. An earlier report by the WHO stated that the virus reemerged in Sohrab Goth, Badin, Gadap Town, Hyderabad city and Sukkur, which raises questions about the outbreak of the disease beyond Karachi. Hyderabad has so far added one polio case to the national tally of over two dozen cases this year. The upcoming three-day vaccination drive in the city will start from September 10. According to Pecheho, 829 polio teams will vaccinate 288,564 children up till the age of 5. Nationwide As reported by The Express Tribune on August 6, a total of 27 polio cases have been reported in Pakistan so far this year, with 13 of them from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, six from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, three each from Sindh and Punjab and two from Balochistan. These cases were reported from 15 different districts in the country. Apart from Sindh, sewerage water from Lahore, Rawalpindi and Peshawar also contained traces of the virus Karachi seems to have regained its status of being one of three high-transmission polio zones in the country. Sewage samples from multiple localities in the city continued to present traces of the virus in lab tests till 2011. However, the efforts of polio teams appeared to have paid off when later samples appeared devoid of the virus, allowing the city be stripped off its high-transmission status for a short period of time. The resurgence of the virus in the city’s sewerage system has been blamed on the failure of the latest nationwide polio campaign in July to reach thousands of children in Karachi and other trouble spots in the country. But one of the greatest challenges is the migration from rural areas to cities as people flee fighting in the north.