The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday reported at an Emergency Committee meeting on the spread of polio that Afghanistan has recorded a 283% increase in polio cases in in the country this year.
According to a statement issued by WHO, since the last Emergency Committee meeting, in July this year, 51 new wild polio cases were reported – 17 from Afghanistan and 34 from Pakistan – bringing the total to 62 in 2024.
This represents a 283% increase in paralytic cases in Afghanistan and a 550% increase in Pakistan compared to all of 2023, WHO reported.
WHO stated there has been an upward trend of wild polio detection in Pakistan since mid-2023, mostly from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan provinces.
In Afghanistan, there has been an increase mainly in the south since late last year 2023.
The emergency meeting to address the surge in polio cases was held on November 6, 2024, and chaired by the WHO Director-General. The statement however, was only released on Tuesday, December 3.
WHO noted that both countries had implemented two nationwide vaccination campaign rounds in 2024. Afghanistan has however implemented an additional four and Pakistan an additional six sub-national vaccination rounds.
“After very encouraging progress towards implementing house-to-house campaigns in all of Afghanistan during the first half of 2024, Afghanistan programme has recently gone back to implementing site-to-site modality campaigns.
“The Committee was concerned about this recent development, since site-to-site campaigns are not able to reach all the children in Afghanistan especially those of younger age and girls, which may lead to a further upsurge of WPV1 (wild polio) with geographical spread in Afghanistan and beyond,” the statement read.
WHO stated that in addition to seasonal movement patterns within and between the two endemic countries, the continued return of undocumented migrants from Pakistan to Afghanistan was compounding the challenges.
“The scale of the displacement increases the risk of cross-border poliovirus spread as well as spread within both the countries.
“This risk is being managed and mitigated in both countries through vaccination at border crossing points and the updating of micro-plans in the districts of origin and return. The programme continues to closely coordinate with IOM and UNHCR,” the statement read.
The organization emphasized the need for more comprehensive vaccination efforts to prevent further spread of the disease and for the international community to step up efforts to help the two countries eliminate the virus.
