PESHAWAR: An intense effort and dedication of the anti-polio team bore fruits after samples of sewage water found no polio virus in Shaheen Muslim Town area of Peshawar, which is unprecedented, ARY News reported Wednesday.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has also confirmed that the area was now rid of the polio virus.
The aforesaid area was one of the vulnerable spots where recurrence of polio virus had become a routine happening.
The polio teams had particularly focused the Shaheed Muslim Town area after it was termed highly ‘vulnerable spot’ by the WHO and other agencies working to eradicate the crippling disease from Pakistan.
The spokesperson of Prime Minister’s polio taskforce Babar Bin Ata has termed it a big achievement and congratulated people on ‘overcoming’ the challenge prevailing for years.
The teams obtain samples from 59 different polio-prone spots of the country after every 45 days to analyze effectiveness of polio eradication drive.
Read: Presence of active polio virus in 12 cities confirmed
On April 18, Polio eradication programme had confirmed presence of active polio virus in sewage of 12 big cities of the country. As per details, P-1 polio virus was found from the sewage of the 12 big cities including, Peshawar, Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi, Banu, Mardan, Waziristan, Hyderabad, Sukkur and Shahdadkot.
Sources privy to the development said keeping the alarming situation in view, the authorities have decided to extend age from 5 to 10 years for the administration of the anti-polio drops.
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