LAHORE: Chief Minister Usman Buzdar announced on Friday that the sewage samples were taken from Punjab, so far this year, are polio-free.
“This year [so far], sewage samples from all cities across Punjab have turned out to be polio-free and no new polio cases have been reported in the province,” tweeted the chief minister.
الحمدللہ اس سال پنجاب بھر میں تمام شہروں کے سیوریج کے نمونے پولیو فری نکلے ہیں اور صوبے میں پولیو کا کوئی بھی نیا کیس رپورٹ نہیں ہوا
پاکستان کو پولیو فری بنانے کے لیے ویکسینیشن کا عمل تسلسل سے جاری ہے اور انشاء اللہ ہم جلد اس مرض کا پاکستان سے مکمل طور پر خاتمہ کر دیں گے!!
— Usman Buzdar (@UsmanAKBuzdar) November 26, 2021
Buzdar assured everyone that Pakistan is working on making the country polio-free by carrying out vaccinations routinely. He vowed that Pakistan will soon be rid of the crippling disease.
Buzdar’s tweet came three days after the World Health Organisation announced that no new cases of the virus have been reported since January.
In a statement after Thirtieth Polio IHR Emergency Committee, the global agency said that polio “transmission has fallen to low levels, with no new case since January 2021”. It added that in January only two polio cases were reported in the world one each from Pakistan and Afghanistan, compared to 129 WPV1 cases during the same period in 2020.
Read more: Experts call for immunization of children against MMR & polio
“From environmental surveillance, the overall proportion of specimens that are positive in Pakistan is 10% compared to 56% in 2020 and there have been only seven positive samples since April 2021, meaning the proportion of positives for the last six months is 2.2 per cent,” the WHO had said.
“During last three months, only one environmental sample has tested positive for WPV1 from the 163 assessed samples (from DI Khan in August). September 2021 was the first month since environmental surveillance started in Pakistan in which all of the assessed environmental samples tested negative for WPV1,” said the statement.
