LAHORE, Oct 29: The National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad, has reportedly found the Wild Poliovirus (WPV) in one sewage sample out of the three collected from as many ‘under-threat’ localities of the provincial capital.

Sources said the World Health Organization (WHO) experts had collected the samples from Gulshan-i-Ravi, Multan Road and Outfall Road that were dispatched to the Polio Virology Laboratory at the NIH for analysis.

They said the NIH released its reports a few days back declaring that a large number of children residing in densely populated localities along Outfall Road risked contact with the Wild Poliovirus. However, the samples from the remaining two localities were found to be negative for WPV.

Earlier, according to the sources, the district administration had heaved a sigh of relief when the sewage samples from these three localities were found negative for WPV in September.

These city areas had been marked for WPV threat due to large clusters of pakhtun population there, particularly alongside the Ravi bed. They were also especially focused during various anti-polio drives launched in the city from time to time.

The re-emergence of the WPV in the city has again alerted the health authorities.

The presence of WPV in the environment showed that the children were not properly immunised in the area during last round of the anti-polio campaign, a senior official told Dawn requesting anonymity.

He said in the light of the NIH reports, the district administration declared all localities near Outfall Road ‘high-risk’ for poliovirus and announced to introduce Short Interval Additional Dose (SIAD) strategy to fight the disease there.

Executive District Officer (health) Dr Inamul Haq told Dawn the administration had decided to shift its focus to the locality where the WPV was found in the environment.

He said these high-risk localities along Outfall Road were densely populated and mostly housed pakhtun families which were hard to reach out to because of cultural constraints and low education ratio.

He said the indications of the presence of polio virus showed that the anti-polio teams dispatched to these localities during vaccination drives had missed many of the targeted children.

In the coming round of anti-polio drive, he said, pakhtun students studying at various education institutions in the city would be involved to reach out to these (pakhtun) families.

“The government has decided to engage pakhtun students of the Government College University Lahore as volunteers to achieve hundred per cent immunisation target in the WPV-affected localities under the SIAD strategy within two weeks or so,” Dr Inam said.