KP reports first polio case of 2020.

Byline: Ikram Junaidi

ISLAMABAD -- Ahead of a national immunisation campaign in February, the first case of polio in the year 2020 has been reported from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The victim is a 12-month-old boy, a resident of Lakki Marwat district's Serae Naurang tehsil of Union Council Bakhmal Ahmadzai.

'Samples were collected on January 3 as the child's lower limbs were paralysed. The socioeconomic status of child's family has been declared poor,' an official of the polio programme said, requesting anonymity.

According to officials of the polio programme, the immunity gap that emerged across the country in the year 2019 shall be plugged through two nationwide polio campaigns in the next three months.

'The national campaign is planned for February 2020. Considering comparatively higher concentration of overt and covert refusal clusters in the district, in addition to other measures, the targeted grass root community engagement activities were being implemented ahead of each polio campaign,' he said.

National Emergency Polio Programme Coordinator Dr Rana Safdar, while speaking to Dawn, said that South KP had been the epicentre of 2019 outbreaks largely due to significant clustering of missed children owing to various misconceptions.

'As we began a series of campaigns from December, the targeted community engagement through identified...