An expanding poliovirus outbreak is posing a public health emergency for children across the country. Health officials have appealed to parents to urgently vaccinate their children at every opportunity to protect them from the crippling poliovirus which has now affected 32 children.

Making an urgent call to action for parents, caregivers and communities, Prime Minister’s Focal Person for Polio Eradication Ms Ayesha Raza Farooq said: “This should be a wake-up call for all parents and communities. Every paralytic polio case means there are hundreds of children who are silently affected by poliovirus and are potentially carrying and spreading it throughout their communities,” she said.

“Today, every child is at risk, and it is unfortunate that children are facing the real consequences of missing vaccination because of misguided decisions and misperceptions about the vaccine.”

On Tuesday, the Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health confirmed the detection of wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) from two children in Jacobabad and one child each from Karachi Malir and DI Khan districts, bringing the total number of cases in 2022 to 32.