KARACHI: Experts said at an orientation seminar on Thursday that they were worried over the incessant manifestation of polio cases in Pakistan`s wild northwest, which showed that the country was in the middle of an `outbreak` warranting all possible measures to prevent it.

`Polio is an international issue,` said Jan Marcus Hellstrom, communication specialist at the United Nations Children`s Fund Sindh. `The world considers an outbreak when a single case is detected anywhere,` he said while speaking at the training workshop for journalists organised by Unicef Pakistan in collaboration with the expanded programme on immunisation (EPI) Sindh and the World Health Organisation.

The programme focused on polio reporting, polio eradication in Pakistan with special attention to highlighting the myths and realities associated with the issue with a detailed mechanism of vaccine management.

Mr Hellstrom said Pakistan was a piece of a large globalnetwork established to eradicate the crippling disease. The mechanism was so glued and attached across the nations that a single case jolted the entire string.

He said previously Pakistan received poliovirus carriers from Afghanistan, but now it took the other way around.

`The last case detected in Afghanistan probably came from Pakistan,` he said and spoke about the dangers associated with the situation if it persisted.`Stricter travel sanctions could not be ruled out if we don`t improve and Pakistan could suffer even more in the face of possible economic implications,` he said.

He said the federally-administered tribal areas (Fata) was the region where the frequency of polio cases had increased over a year. He said 23 cases had been reported in Pakistan in less than two months of 2014 20 in Fata and three in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Last year polio crippled 93 Pakistani children, including about 80 in the two regions.

Dr Durre Naz Jamal of the EPI Sindh said that after a year of break Karachi had again become a reservoir for polio from where eight of the 10 polio cases in Sindh were reported last year.

She said Gadap, Baldia, Landhi, Gulshan and Bin Qasim were the neighbourhoods where poliovirus was being detected in the sewers from time to time.

She stressed the need for a `quality campaign` in Karachi from January to April to effectively safeguard children who had better immunity during winter.

She said the one-day campaigns, which started lastSunday, would continue for nine Sundays five for `highly sensitive` areas, one each for `sensitive` and moderate areas while all those areas would be jointly covered on the last two Sundays. She said 88pc of the children were covered last Sunday.

Senior paediatrician Iqbal Memon said the situation was getting so alarming that people from abroad would soon be refusing to visit Pakistan.

He said Pakistan and China started polio campaigns in 1994 and the latter eradicated the disease within four years.

`We are still groping in the dark though two decades have already passed,` he said.

He said earlier Pakistan had 2013 as the deadline to eradicate polio from its territory. Ironically, the very year proved dangerous and the deadline was extended to 2019.

Dr Mehboob Khan of the WHO tried to clear ambiguity vis-à-vis the origins of a poliovirus.

He said like humans, poliovirus also had a DNA design that helped experts find the origin of a particular virus found anywhere.

`A poliovirus detected in Syria was traced to Pakistan through a DNA sample. It is no rocket science now to trace the ancestors of any virus,` he said. `Genetic analysis enables us to know which chain a particular virus belongs to.` He said the virus of Pakistani origin was found in China, Syria and Israel.

He said just four campaigns, which covered 95pc of children, could eradicate poliovirus from Pakistan.