Islamabad, May 7 (IANS) As the polio virus continues to pose a major public health threat in Pakistan, five environmental samples collected in Karachi have recently tested positive for the virus, local media reported, citing a senior health department official.

Speaking at a consultation held at Sindh on Wednesday, Pakistan's Emergency Operations Centre Coordinator Sheheryar Memon said that five environmental samples in Karachi recently tested positive for the poliovirus, stressing the urgent need for intensified response efforts and measures.

“Virus circulation during a typically low transmission season remains a serious concern," leading Pakistani daily Dawn quoted Memon as saying.

The session organised at the Sindh Institute of Child Health and Neonatology (SICHN) brought together senior paediatricians from across Karachi, along with experts from UNICEF, the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, N-STOP, the Pakistan Paediatric Association and the Pakistan Medical Association.

Raising concerns over the widespread circulation of poliovirus in Karachi, a WHO representative, George, said that strategies that proved effective in Africa were being adopted to interrupt transmission in Pakistan.

Last week, two new polio cases were reported from Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, bringing the total number of reported cases in the country since the start of this year to three, local media reported.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, an official of the Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme told Dawn that two new cases of wild poliovirus – one in Bannu and another in North Waziristan – were confirmed by the National Emergency Operations Centre for Polio Eradication (NEOC).

“The two new cases were reported through the poliovirus surveillance network and confirmed by the WHO-accredited Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health (NIH),” the official stated.

Pakistan and Afghanistan remain the only two countries in the world where polio cases are still reported.

Last month, police escorts were reportedly killed, and polio workers abducted in attacks in KP's Hangu and Bannu, besides parts of Balochistan.

The attacks on vaccination teams took place during the nationwide immunisation drive to administer polio drops.

Reports suggest that vaccine refusals by parents remain another major challenge. Karachi alone accounted for about 31,000 refusals, nearly 58 per cent of the national total.

This has raised questions about the role of misinformation, weak planning, poor local governance and lack of political focus in the country’s largest city.

--IANS

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