A polio outbreak in Pakistan has pushed back the global goal of eradicating the disease.

A polio outbreak in Pakistan has pushed back the global goal of eradicating the disease.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan —

After 15 months without a single child being afflicted by the highly contagious disease, Pakistan has announced its seventh case of wild polio virus this year.

The virus "confirmed disabled" a 7-month-old girl in North Waziristan, a volatile Pakistani province bordering Afghanistan, according to the national eradication campaign.

"All wild polio cases reported this year are from North Waziristan," according to the programme, "where more cases are expected due to high refusal rates and instances of finger-marking without immunisation during campaigns."

Polio still paralyses youngsters in Pakistan and Afghanistan, despite the fact that case counts on both sides of the border have declined dramatically in recent years.

In Pakistan, a youngster was paralysed for the first time in January 2021. In Afghanistan, one wild polio virus infection was detected this year, with four expected in 2021.

"We are giving the polio vaccine to children under the age of ten at all entry and exit points... to prevent the virus from spreading to the rest of Pakistan," said Shahzad Baig, the national emergency operations coordinator.

I was in North Waziristan last week with @ZainulAbedinK17 to supervise actions in the district, which has reported all wild #polio cases so far. We talked with a variety of government leaders and community members in order to build community ownership and lessen vaccine apprehension.

Many parents in the area, according to a senior health official, continue to deny polio vaccinations for their children during national immunisation campaigns, while others view vaccinators' repeated door-to-door visits as intrusive.

The refusals are based on fears that the vaccine is part of a Western-led plot to sterilise Muslim children. False information has prompted attacks on health-care workers and security personnel accompanying them, resulting in the deaths of dozens of individuals in recent years and hampering eradication efforts.

Officials claim that parents who are suspicious about immunisation programmes often collude with health officials to obtain special markers used by vaccinators to place a colourful spot on the fingers of vaccinated youngsters. The exact scale of refusal rates is determined through finger marking.

Insurgents in Waziristan are also active, and they regard the polio vaccine as an attempt to gather intelligence on their actions.

According to data from the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, the number of global polio infections in 2022 has increased to nine, including one in Malawi (GPEI).

According to the GPEI, the epidemic in Malawi was "genetically" connected to wild polio virus discovered in Pakistan's southern Sindh province in 2019.

Pakistan's second national five-day immunisation campaign of the year took place last week, involving over 300,000 health care workers and reaching 43 million children under the age of five.

The campaign was "synchronised with Afghanistan," according to officials, so that youngsters on both sides of the border received vaccines at the same time and were protected against polio.

Approximately 20,000 Pakistani children were paralysed by polio each year in the early 1990s.