MULTAN, Nov 25: Another 15 cases of wild virus polio have been detected from four districts of former Dera Ghazi Khan division, rising the number of the affected children to over 75 so far.

In the war-torn Afghanistan, only three such cases have been recorded.

Incidences of polio have reached to an alarming proportion in Dera Ghazi Khan, Rajanpur, Muzaffargarh and Leiah districts despite health department’s claims of almost universal immunization.

Till Nov 11, more than 60 polio cases were reported in the division and it was confirmed that 10 of them were affected by wild virus. Laboratory test reports of the remaining patients will confirm either they were hit by wild virus or otherwise.

The figure only included number of patients who were brought to the state-run health facilities. The cases handled by private medical practitioners, general practitioners (GPs), quacks and other traditional healers, hakeems and homoeopaths could not be counted owing to absence of surveillance system.

Sources told Dawn on Sunday that six more cases of wild virus polio were reported in Dera Ghazi Khan, four in Rajanpur, four in Muzaffargarh and one in Leiah districts.

A health department official said children under two years of age had mostly fell prey to the disease which paralysed their both limbs. He said the increasing number of polio patients in the division was a threat to the adjoining areas, especially to Multan. “No incidence of polio has been reported in Multan so far owing to the comprehensive polio immunization cover during the last four or five years,” the official claimed.

In view of the concern expressed by the donor agencies, an extraordinary meeting of inter-provincial committee on prevention of diseases was held in the second week of this month at Dera Ghazi Khan. Representatives of the World Health Organization (WHO) and other donor agencies also participated in the meeting.

The meeting was informed that polio immunization cover in Rajanpur district had been only 20 per cent.

This resulted in the highest number of wild virus incidences, which were around 40 in Rajanpur as compared to the other districts of the Punjab.

A health expert had apprehended that the carriers of wild virus polio might migrate to the adjoining districts of Dera Ghazi Khan division, causing more incidences in other areas.

He said failure to achieve universal polio immunization was the result of the sheer negligence on the part of the health department which had little knowledge about the sensitive nature of disease prevention programme. Consequently, the supervisory system of all the preventive programmes had been paralysed in the Punjab.

According to him, most officials having vast knowledge and experience of immunization programme had been made officers on special duty (OSDs) for reasons better known to the health authorities.

A team of the Global Alliance for Vaccination and Immunization (GAVI) visited Rajanpur last week to ascertain the reasons behind incidence of wild virus polio there.

Experts from Geneva (Switzerland) constitute the team which rushed to Rajanpur after the report of more than 10 cases of wild virus polio there.

The visitors were surprised to learn that the immunization cover in the district was hardly 15 per cent and Rajanpur had emerged as one of the most vulnerable areas in the world to polio.