PESHAWAR: The water samples from Larama area in Peshawar on Sunday tested negative for poliovirus, making brighter the chances of eradication of the virus in the country if government ensured vaccination of children in North Waziristan and Khyber Agency, officials said.

They said that environmental samples taken from Rawalpindi had also tested negative due to which the chances of virus circulation were narrowed but the outside viruses still posed threats of re-infecting the water.

“Three weeks ago, water samples taken from Shaheen Muslim Town tested negative after two years while samples collected from second site in Larama also tested negative. It is a big achievement,” the officials said.

They said that it meant that they had broken the cycle of the virus in Peshawar and there was no fear that any outsider would get infection there or the city would transport the virus to any other place.

Similarly, children coming to and from Rawalpindi used to transmit the virus to children in Peshawar but now both the cities have eradicated their existing viruses and require complete protection from the outside virus.

The officials said that Sehat Ka Insaf programme proved effective.

“Peshawar is at risk of virus from North Waziristan and Khyber agencies only,” they said. It is a unique opportunity for the government to eradicate the virus from Khyber and Waziristan through mass vaccination otherwise the benefit of eradication of polio virus can’t be achieved because of the frequent movements of children from there.

The poliovirus was endemic in North Waziristan where 280,000 children remained unvaccinated due to Taliban’s ban since June 2012, the officials said.

The agency, they said, recorded 26 of the total 33 polio cases registered nationwide in 2014 due to lack of vaccination.

The agency recorded 36 polio cases out of the country’s 93 cases in 2013 that posed serious threats to children in the adjacent Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

“Pakistan is on the verge of eliminating poliovirus and if we fail to grasp this opportunity, we will not be able to cope with the virus,” they said. The World Health Organisation collected water samples from 24 designated sites in Lahore, Karachi, Multan, Peshawar and Rawalpindi to determine the presence of polio virus, they said.

The officials said that elimination of virus in the water meant that the area was no more polio-endemic and the local children were safe. “But we receive thousands of children from areas where virus is in full circulation,” they said. In case of showing laxity in that critical time, water samples from Peshawar could turn positive for poliovirus if people from the infected areas were coming there, they said.

“For example, water samples taken from the sites in Punjab have become negative on several occasions in the past but the province is grappling with the problem because of transmission of outside virus which again infects the water,” they said.

The officials said that water in Peshawar and Rawalpindi could again turn positive for poliovirus if vaccination in endemic areas wasn’t done immediately. “If Pakistani virus can infect people in Syria, Egypt and China then it can be transmitted to local children more easily,” they said.