KARACHI: An estimated 10,195 cases of extensively drug resistant (XDR) typhoid have been reported in Sindh from November 2016 to August 2019. Most of these cases were reported in Karachi and Hyderabad and involved children under the age of 15 years.

This information was shared by experts during a public awareness seminar at Karachi University, jointly organised by the health department and Dr Panjwani Centre for Molecular Medicine and Drug Research and Virtual Education Project Pakistan.

Giving a presentation on typhoid fever, Dr Khalid Zuberi, an associate professor at the Dow Medical College, said the bacterial infection caused by Salmonella typhi was rare in developed countries, but it remained a serious health threat in low-income and middle-income countries.

‘Some 2,999 cases were reported in Karachi in August’

“An estimated 11-20 million people get sick from typhoid and 128,000 to 161,000 people die of it every year. Pakistan and India are the most-affected countries in Asia,” he said.

According to Dr Zuberi, the general secretary of the Pakistan Paediatric Association, protection and purification of drinking water supplies and improvement in basic sanitation and food hygiene are key measures to eliminating the disease, which spreads through contaminated food and water or through close contact with someone who’s infected.

Speaking about XDR typhoid, he said the cases of this typhoid strain resistant to five classes of antibiotics were first reported in Hyderabad in 2016 and had affected 10,195 people till August 2019.

“Most of these cases were reported in Karachi (6,886) followed by Hyderabad (2,450). Other districts reported 859 cases,” he said.

As many as 4,709 XDR typhoid cases were registered in Sindh during Aug 2019 alone, of which 2,999 cases were reported in Karachi, he added.

The provincial health department, he pointed out, would launch a Typhoid Conjugate Vaccine (TCV) campaign against XDR typhoid fever on Nov 18.

Dr Zahoor Ahmed Baloch, former project director of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI), said the typhoid outbreak in Hyderabad and Karachi had prompted the need for the vaccination campaign in Sindh.

“It targets 10.1 million children of nine months to 15 years.

The target population includes 4.7 million children in Karachi.”

Provincial EPI consultant Suneel Raja said that the vaccination for XDR typhoid fever had also been added to the EPI.

The typhoid conjugate vaccine was currently not available commercially, he added.

Published in Dawn, November 1st, 2019