Polio on the Rise Again in Pakistan

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

Polio is surging again in Pakistan, frustrating world health officials trying to wipe out the disease.Last week, the country reported 202 cases of paralysis, the first time in 14 years the figure topped 200.

Pakistan is the only country where the virus is spreading fast. Eight of Afghanistan’s 10 cases are linked to Pakistan, said Dr. Elias Durry, who directs the World Health Organization’s response in Pakistan. Both Nigeria and Somalia have fewer than 10 cases each, and Africa may be polio-free by 2015, he said.

But in Pakistan, he said, “the virus is laughing at us and doing whatever it wants.” The fight against Ebola in Africa is not hurting the polio drive, Dr. Durry said; the problem is a lack of political leadership.

The polio virus is now showing up in sewage samples all over Karachi, the country’s largest city, and not just in a few districts.

Relatives of Nasima Bibi, a worker in a polio vaccination drive, at a hospital morgue in Karachi.Attackers in Pakistan Kill Anti-Polio WorkersDEC. 18, 2012

No immunization has taken place for several years in wide swaths of Waziristan, where the army is fighting tribes aligned with the Taliban. As many as 350,000 unvaccinated children driven out of those areas now live in slums all over the country, and 50 vaccinators or their police escorts have been killed since 2012.

Last week, India warned Pakistanis applying for travel visas that if they were caught offering forged polio-vaccination certificates, then they would be denied entry and might be permanently banned from travel to India, which was officially declared polio-free this year.