KARACHI, Feb 16: Contrary to the aspirations and initiatives of public health concerns, a case of polio has been detected in Hyderabad.

The second largest city of the province enjoyed the status of a polio-free zone for many years until recently.

Sources privy to the expanded immunization programme told Dawn that this latest detection was the first polio case of 2008 in Sindh.

There were reports about detection of other first polio cases of the year in Punjab and the NWFP as well, the source added.

The latest detections have surely shattered the dreams of thousands of polio eradication staffers belonging to national and international health institutions.

They have also necessitated an increase in both quality and quantity of supplementary immunization activities in the endemic areas as well as zones at high risk of importation of polio virus.

The Sindh director-general of health, Dr Abdul Majeed Chhutto, said that a 14-month-old boy living in Preetabad, Hyderabad, had been found with an onset of paralysis and as such the relevant health consultants had also been approached for necessary treatment of the child.

He came to know about the new polio case unofficially a few days back, while the authorities concerned confirmed the polio virus in the child on Saturday, the DG said, adding that the relevant EDO (health) would surely initiate action against the eradication team working in the Hyderabad area.

He said he suspected the vaccine administration to the child was not up to the mark. A child of his age deserved polio drops more than 10 times, while he was given the drops on four occasions or so, Dr Chhutto added.

He further said that the latest case of polio was surely a big blow to the efforts made for eradication, particularly when Hyderabad was being treated as a polio-free zone for the last five years or so. There was a dire need for additional administration of drops in the vicinity of the child’s residence and mopping up in a radius of two kilometres, he said.

In 2007, 32 cases were reported in Pakistan, including 12 in Sindh. Hyderabad was not included in the districts identified to be as high-risk areas. There were six polio-infected districts in Sindh -- Karachi, Khairpur, Thatta, Jacobabad, Kambar and Ghotki. Most of the 12 cases from Sindh in 2007 showed a prolonged weak operation in some districts of the province, said another source.

At a meeting of the technical advisory committee on polio in Afghanistan and Pakistan held in Egypt in the first week of February, need for improving the ownership and capacity in provincial and local governments in Sindh and Balochistan was also stressed as “consistently poor quality polio campaigns” permitted virus transmission to continue, the source added.

The provincial programme manager of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation, Sindh, Dr Salma Kauser Ali, however, said that what she had as updates was that the Hyderabad case was one of the hot cases of the new year, while evidences, which were still under scrutiny, supported its declaration as a confirmed polio case. Things would become clear when the WHO offices would resume work after the weekend, she said, adding that if the case turned out to be a confirmed one, it would be the first in Hyderabad after a gap of three years.

Answering a question, she said the Sindh EPI had intimated the federal government last year that necessary measures be ensured in the case of Matiari, Hyderabad, Tando Allahyar, Tando Mohammad Khan, and Jamshoro, otherwise any inward transmission of virus could hardly be resisted there.

Meanwhile, another potential polio case is being scrutinised in Nawabshah.