ISLAMABAD: The wild poliovirus has recently been detected in the environmental samples of three more cities of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Ministry of National Health Services told Xinhua on Thursday.
The virus was detected in the sewage samples of Peshawar, Bannu, and Lahore, the ministry said, adding the samples were taken from 70 sites across the country.
A few days ago, the virus was found in the samples from Rawalpindi, Sialkot and Bahawalpur, the ministry said.
Wild polio-I has been detected in 17 environmental samples this year. However, the scale of its presence all over the country could not be found due to monsoon rains and floods in Sindh and Balochistan, according to the ministry.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Pakistan is one of only two countries, with Afghanistan, where the wild poliovirus is still endemic.
Anti-vaccination sentiment in Pakistan is deeply rooted. Clerics and others have spread myths that vaccines are a conspiracy by the west to sterilise Muslim children, and a husband was allowed to divorce his wife for vaccinating their children against polio.
Nationwide vaccination drives have been carried out door-to-door for the past 25 years. The teams are mostly female health workers, often volunteers, who have to be escorted by security guards.
