LAHORE, Sept 25: Though international donor agencies have given a deadline to celebrate 2002 as a year of polio eradication, another confirmed wild polio case has been reported from the provincial headquarters, putting the total number of cases reported in the first nine months in the Punjab to 11.

In the latest case, 21-month-old Sharafat, son of Yousaf, a resident of Mominpura, Shalimar Town, Lahore, has been found infected with P3-wild polio virus.

Health secretary Hasan Waseem Afzal had earlier this month told a press conference that nine confirmed polio cases had been reported in the Punjab during the ongoing calendar year.

The 10th polio case had been reported on Aug 10 and it was under process till the health secretary made an announcement of nine confirmed polio cases.

It was shocking to know that the polio case reported in Lahore was of P3-wild category while the other 10 cases (four girls and six boys) reported from the other districts were of P1-Wild category. Three polio cases had been reported from Dera Ghazi Khan while one case each from Rajanpur, Rahim Yar Khan, Khanewal, Sahiwal, Gujranwala, Okara, Layyah and Lahore districts.

The victims of the confirmed 10 P1-wild cases were —- 30-month-old Muhammad Irfan, son of Noor, 16-month-old Muhammad Rashid, son of Mushtaq, 16-month-old Asia daughter of Muhammad Aslam (DG Khan), 12-month-old Sajida, daughter of Talib Husain (Rajanpur), 18-month-old Hameed, son of Rashid (Rahim Yar Khan), six-year-old Muhammad Azeem, son of Ghulam Shabbir (Khanewal), 10-year-old Nadia, daughter of Muhammad Ali (Sahiwal), one-month old Usman, son of Maqsood (Gujranwala), 33-month-old Rashida, daughter of Ahmed Ali (Okara) and 22-month-old Saqlain Nawaz, son of Muhammad Nawaz (Layyah).

It may be mentioned that the health secretary, while announcing the three-day National Immunization Days (NIDs) campaign from Sept 3, had hoped that it would be the final immunization round to eradicate polio from the province.

After the three-day immunization campaign supplemented by two more days, the health department as well as the third party validation had stated that the anti-polio vaccination coverage was around 98 per cent.

However, the vercaity of the claim could be judged from the P3-wild polio case reported in Mominpura, Shalimar Town, Lahore. The health department teams surveyed the area again and found that the immunization coverage in the area was not even 50 per cent.

Polio virus has three stains —- P1, P2 and P3. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, a case of P1 polio may represent 200 infected children while P3 type may represent 1,000 infected children.

In P3 type of infection, 90 per cent of the affected children have no signs of illness. Most of them are not aware that they have been infected with polio virus. But they are a potential threat for others as despite being asymptomatic polio virus remains in their stools.

The world wide experience in polio eradication is that the first polio virus which disappears is P2 followed by P1 and P3, respectively.

Paediatricians say the asymptomatic polio-carriers may cause the disease to unprotected not immunized children.

It is relevant to mention that 144 confirmed polio cases had been reported in the province in 1999, while the number of these cases reduced to 55 in 2000. Last year, 45 cases were reported.

According to details of the acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) cases reported all over the province, 636 AFP cases had been reported in 1999 followed by 488 cases in 2000, 778 cases last year and 285 AFP cases reported during the first nine months of the ongoing calendar year.

Health department officials, however, say that the AFP cases reported at the state-run facilities might not depict the actual picture of the alarming number of polio cases in the province. They say there is no surveillance system to check polio cases reported to the private sector health facilities.

The officials also say that the health department will again launch the immunization campaign next month and then a mop up operation in December this year.

“By the end of this year, the health department will stop the transmission of the polio virus,” they claimed.