ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Punjab this week reported its first case of poliovirus since 2024, local media widely reported on Sunday, marking four years since a case of the infection was last detected in the country’s most populous province. 

An official from the Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication, located in the National Institute of Health (NIH), confirmed to English-language newspaper Dawn that the latest victim is a six-year-old male child from Pakistan’s eastern Chakwal district. 

This takes the tally of polio cases in Pakistan to 12 this year. Previously, nine cases have been reported in the southwestern Balochistan province and two in the southern Sindh province. 

“The latest victim is over six years old, indicating possible immunity-related issues,” the official told Dawn. 

“We are currently in the eighth month of the year and have already doubled last year’s total of six cases. This suggests that the polio situation in the country is worsening.”

Polio is a highly infectious disease mainly affecting children under the age of five years. It invades the nervous system and can cause paralysis or even death. While there is no cure for polio, vaccination has proven to be the most effective way to protect children from the crippling disease.

Polio vaccination efforts in Pakistan have been hampered by the belief among many Pakistanis, particularly those residing in the conservative northwestern tribal areas, that the medicine is a Western campaign aimed at sterilizing the country’s population or a cover for Western spies.

In 2012, the local Taliban ordered a ban on immunization against polio in some tribal districts. Several policemen have been killed this year while on security duty during vaccination campaigns that are frequently targeted by militants. Dozens of polio workers have also lost their lives over the decades.

The 2011 US special forces raid inside Pakistan that killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, architect of the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, also increased masses’ fears about polio vaccination. 

A Pakistani doctor was accused of using a fake vaccination campaign to collect DNA samples that the CIA was believed to have been using to verify bin Laden’s identity. The doctor remains jailed in Pakistan.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s disaster management authority has warned of glacial lake outbursts, flash floods and landslides in the country's north due to torrential monsoon rains.

Torrential monsoon rains in Pakistan have killed at least 30 people this week, drenching the country’s second-largest city of Lahore in the most rainfall it has received in more than four decades, according to authorities.

Pakistan is recognized as one of the world’s worst-affected countries due to climate change impacts. The South Asian country has experienced torrential rains, droughts and heat waves that have become more severe and erratic over the past couple of years. 

“The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) Emergencies Operation Center anticipated that a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF), Landslides and Flash Flood is expected in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit Baltistan due to increasing glacier melt, persistent high temperatures and weather system bringing intermittent rains from today till Tuesday,” the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) said on Saturday. 

The NDMA said intermittent rains and high temperatures are expected to trigger low-level/localized flash floods, which in turn can impact temporary bridge and road connections for upstream areas.

The authority has advised the provincial disaster management authorities and local administrations in KP and GB to closely monitor the situation, identify at-risk populations, and evacuate them to safer zones in case of medium to high flows, the state-run media reported. 

Unusually heavy rains in June 2022 triggered flash floods in many parts of the country, killing over 1,700 people, inflicting losses of around $30 billion, and affecting at least 30 million people.

In June, a UN official warned that an estimated 200,000 people in Pakistan could be affected by the upcoming monsoon season, which is expected to bring heavier rains than usual.
The United Nations, with help from local authorities, has prepared a contingency plan, with $40 million set aside to respond to any emergencies, said Mohamed Yahya, the newly appointed Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in Pakistan.