Pakistan reports second polio case of year 2022.

ISLAMABAD -- The Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination on Friday confirmed that a two-year-old girl was paralyzed by the wild polio-virus in the second case in Pakistan this year.

According to the spokesman of the Ministry of National Health Services, the child had an onset of paralysis on April 14.

The new type-1 wild polio-virus (WPV1) was confirmed from North Waziristan on 29 April 2022 by the Pakistan National Polio Laboratory at the National Institute of Health in Islamabad, he added.

He said that, on 22 April, a 15-month boy had been confirmed with wild polio with an onset of paralysis on April 9. Both children are from North Waziristan, Southern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and belong to adjacent Union Councils of Mir Ali.

The WPV1 cases are genetically linked and belong to the same virus cluster, further validating the Pakistan Polio Programme's concerns for Southern KP, where continuous virus circulation has been detected.

'It is heartbreaking to learn that a two-year-old girl will be paralyzed for the rest of her life by a virus that has been eliminated in most parts of the world,' Minister for Health Qadir Patel said. 'This is tragic for her family, for the community and all of us in Pakistan, but mostly for this child, who will live with an incurable disease that was entirely preventable.'

'I am directly in contact with the Emergency Operations Centre for polio. They remain highly vigilant and are urgently working to ensure that the virus does not spread outside this particular area. I am personally looking into the case and detailed investigations pertaining to it,' the health minister said, adding, 'After Eid, I will be visiting the province myself to monitor the situation on the ground.'

The polio programme's health workers on the frontline continue to reach children in North Waziristan despite challenging circumstances in hard-to-reach areas.

Southern KP had been identified by the polio programme as the area most at risk after wild poliovirus was detected in environmental samples in...