MULTAN – A doctor in Bahawalpur city of south Punjab was briefly detained by police for allegedly refusing to get his child vaccinated against crippling disease of polio.
It all started when anti-polio team reached the home of the Dr Irfan, who is associated with Victoria Hospital, to administer drops to his child under the ongoing campaign and the medical office showed reluctance.
After the polio team failed to convince the doctor, it called police for assistance. The police officials took Dr Irfan with them in a police van but released him after brief detention.
Later, Dr Irfan told media that he wanted to get his child vaccinated against polio from the hospital.
Pakistan has reported eight polio cases in ongoing year of 2024. All the cases were reported in Sindh and Balochistan.
Last month, two children have been paralyzed by wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) in Balochistan and Sindh, bringing the number of cases in Pakistan this year to eight.
According to the Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health, WPV1 was detected in stool samples collected from a two-year-old child in Killa Abdullah, who had onset of paralysis on May 22, and three-year-old from Karachi Keamari, who had onset of paralysis on June 3.
