ISLAMABAD – Pakistan faces the big setback on the Polio front, revealsinternational media report that a dangerous and extinct polio virus typehas been diagnosed in Pakistan.
British publication *The Guardian* reported that the Pakistani governmentwas trying to contain an outbreak of what was believed to have been anextinct type of the virus.
In its report, the paper said most of the most of the affected patients arefrom the Diamer district of Gilgit-Baltistan. The virus has also beendetected and diagnosed within Islamabad.
12 children have already been paralyzed, as this strain of the virus,called P2, is much more debilitating than the usual forms of the virus.
In a tweet, Babar bin Atta, the government’s former focal person on theanti-polio campaign, said that Dr Malik Safi – who confirmed the outbreakto *The Guardian – *was recently removed from the office. Atta himself isfacing a corruption allegations that suggest he mismanaged funds allocatedto him by the United Kingdom’s DFID, and was removed from this positionbased on these allegations.
However, *The Guardian *report suggests that Atta is directly involved withsuppressing the information of the new outbreak from international donororganizations and the media. As Pakistan is now the only country in theworld where the P2 virus exists, it is likely measures will be takenagainst Pakistanis travelling overseas to ensure that the virus does notproliferate.
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Since the article has become viral, Atta has claimed that what the reportsuggests is *”*baseless”, and states that the publication is mixing upanother strain of the polio virus with the P2 virus.
The state minister for health, Zafar Mirza, has also stated that theoutbreak is of a “Sabin-Like Type 2” virus outbreak, and said that therehas been “absolutely no cover up”. Considering that this acknowledgementcomes after *The Guardian* piece, the government response has been met withunderstandable scrutiny.
According to the World Health Organization, the strain that the governmentis claiming has been discovered in Diamir and Islamabad is caused whenpolio vaccines are excreted and end up in the environment. When in the samearea, children have not received polio drops, they become susceptible tobeing infected with the virus within the excreted vaccines. This means thatthe current outbreak is a result of an incomplete or inconsistentvaccination campaign.
What is more damning for the government is that for cases of paralysis tooccur, the virus must have been present in vulnerable populations for atleast 12 months.
