Pakistan seeks UNICEF help in vaccine manufacturing amid rapid rise in polio cases

ISLAMABAD: Following the recent rapid increase in polio cases, the government of Pakistan has sought the cooperation of United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) in local manufacturing of poliovirus vaccine to effectively and timely deal with the fatal disease paralysing the children.

Coordinator to the Prime Minister (PM) on National Health Services Dr Mukhtar Ahmad Bharath in a meeting with UNICEF Supply Chain Division Director has also appealed to UNICEF for cooperation in the development of the polio vaccine in Pakistan. UNICEF Supply Chain Division Director assured the coordinator of supplying uninterrupted polio vaccine supplies to Pakistan and cooperation in preparation of polio vaccine at local level. UNICEF director assured the PM’s coordinator of active cooperation, adding the United Nations will also help Pakistan’s private sector in capacity building.

The local development of vaccines would meet the demand of vaccines in Pakistan as well as reduce the strain on foreign exchange reserves, Dr Bharath said. He stated that the government was committed to boost pharma exports of the country as per the PM’s vision. He said that local manufacturing of the poliovirus vaccine will help save millions of dollars of foreign exchange of the country.

Since June 2024, Pakistan has detected a total of 32 poliovirus cases, despite nationwide massive polio eradication drives. This year, 16 poliovirus positive cases have been registered in Balochistan province, 10 cases in Sindh, four in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, one each in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) and Punjab.

An advisory issued here on Wednesday by the National Institute of Health (NIH) stated, “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 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.”

“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.”

The NIH revealed that 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.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024