Two more cases of vaccinated polio virus have come to light in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab, bringing the number of polio-infected children in the country to 44 this year.
An official of the National Institutes of Health said on condition of anonymity that a one-and-a-half-year-old girl in Punjab’s Faisalabad district became disabled due to polio.
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He further said that the girl affected by polio in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is one year and five months old and belongs to Lower Dir district.
“This is not a wild polio disease, but a Sibyl Like Type 2 Drive (SLT2D) type of polio and such a virus has been reported in many countries around the world,” the official said.
These include the Philippines, China, Indonesia, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and several countries in Africa where polio has been eradicated.
It should be noted that there are 3 serotypes of wild polio virus which are type 1, type 2 and type 3 with slight difference of capsid protein.
Oral polio vaccine (OPVs) in Pakistan, ie type 1 and type 3 viruses are given in the form of drops and injections.
However, in 2014, the country stopped giving type 2 virus and since 2016, it has not been found in the country at the environmental level.
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Keep in mind that a positive polio virus at the environmental level means that the virus can be found in sewage water.
The National Institutes of Health official added that cases reported in various areas in 2019 showed that some of the virus was left in a laboratory or elsewhere, which began to spread due to human error.