Pakistan confirms 18th polio case of 2025 amid low vaccine uptake in high-risk areas
The latest infection, confirmed by the Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health, marks the 11th case in the province, long identified as a high-risk zone for poliovirus transmission due to insecurity, vaccine hesitancy and operational challenges.
'A 10-month-old boy from Union Council Mullazai in District Tank, South Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has been confirmed as the eleventh polio case ... this year, bringing the total number of polio cases in Pakistan in 2025 to eighteen,' the National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) said in a statement.
'The continued detection of polio cases underscores the persistent threat to children, particularly in areas with low vaccine acceptance,' it added. 'It is crucial for communities to understand that poliovirus can re-emerge wherever immunity gaps persist.'
Polio is a highly contagious and incurable disease that can cause lifelong paralysis. Health experts stress that the only effective protection is through repeated oral polio vaccine (OPV) doses for every child under five during each campaign, along with the timely completion of routine immunizations.
While Pakistan's polio program has carried out six vaccination campaigns since September 2024, thousands of children in South Khyber Pakhtunkhwa remain unreached due to limited access and logistical barriers in conducting house-to-house immunizations.
The NEOC said two more nationwide and one sub-national campaign are planned between August and December, alongside targeted drives in high-risk districts to stop virus transmission.
Health authorities have also urged parents and caregivers to ensure their children receive every dose, and called on communities to support frontline workers, combat misinformation, and encourage vaccination as a collective responsibility.
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Arab News
19 hours ago
- Arab News
Harvard scientists say research could be set back years after funding freeze
CAMBRIDGE: Harvard University professor Alberto Ascherio's research is literally frozen. Collected from millions of US soldiers over two decades using millions of dollars from taxpayers, the epidemiology and nutrition scientist has blood samples stored in liquid nitrogen freezers within the university's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The samples are key to his award-winning research, which seeks a cure to multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases. But for months, Ascherio has been unable to work with the samples because he lost $7 million in federal research funding, a casualty of Harvard's fight with the Trump administration. 'It's like we have been creating a state-of-the-art telescope to explore the universe, and now we don't have money to launch it,' said Ascherio. 'We built everything and now we are ready to use it to make a new discovery that could impact millions of people in the world and then, 'Poof. You're being cut off.'' Researchers laid off and science shelved The loss of an estimated $2.6 billion in federal funding at Harvard has meant that some of the world's most prominent researchers are laying off young researchers. They are shelving years or even decades of research, into everything from opioid addiction to cancer. And despite Harvard's lawsuits against the administration, and settlement talks between the warring parties, researchers are confronting the fact that some of their work may never resume. The funding cuts are part of a monthslong battle that the Trump administration has waged against some the country's top universities including Columbia, Brown and Northwestern. The administration has taken a particularly aggressive stance against Harvard, freezing funding after the country's oldest university rejected a series of government demands issued by a federal antisemitism task force. The government had demanded sweeping changes at Harvard related to campus protests, academics and admissions — meant to address government accusations that the university had become a hotbed of liberalism and tolerated anti-Jewish harassment. Research jeopardized, even if court case prevails Harvard responded by filing a federal lawsuit, accusing the Trump administration of waging a retaliation campaign against the university. In the lawsuit, it laid out reforms it had taken to address antisemitism but also vowed not to 'surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.' 'Make no mistake: Harvard rejects antisemitism and discrimination in all of its forms and is actively making structural reforms to eradicate antisemitism on campus,' the university said in its legal complaint. 'But rather than engage with Harvard regarding those ongoing efforts, the Government announced a sweeping freeze of funding for medical, scientific, technological, and other research that has nothing at all to do with antisemitism.' The Trump administration denies the cuts were made in retaliation, saying the grants were under review even before the demands were sent in April. It argues the government has wide discretion to cancel federal contracts for policy reasons. The funding cuts have left Harvard's research community in a state of shock, feeling as if they are being unfairly targeted in a fight has nothing to do with them. Some have been forced to shutter labs or scramble to find nongovernment funding to replace lost money. In May, Harvard announced that it would put up at least $250 million of its own money to continue research efforts, but university President Alan Garber warned of 'difficult decisions and sacrifices' ahead. Ascherio said the university was able to pull together funding to pay his researchers' salaries until next June. But he's still been left without resources needed to fund critical research tasks, like lab work. Even a year's delay can put his research back five years, he said. Knowledge lost in funding freeze 'It's really devastating,' agreed Rita Hamad, the director of the Social Policies for Health Equity Research Center at Harvard, who had three multiyear grants totaling $10 million canceled by the Trump administration. The grants funded research into the impact of school segregation on heart health, how pandemic-era policies in over 250 counties affected mental health, and the role of neighborhood factors in dementia. At the School of Public Health, where Hamad is based, 190 grants have been terminated, affecting roughly 130 scientists. 'Just thinking about all the knowledge that's not going to be gained or that is going to be actively lost,' Hamad said. She expects significant layoffs on her team if the funding freeze continues for a few more months. 'It's all just a mixture of frustration and anger and sadness all the time, every day.' John Quackenbush, a professor of computational biology and bioinformatics at the School of Public Health, has spent the past few months enduring cuts on multiple fronts. In April, a multimillion dollar grant was not renewed, jeopardizing a study into the role sex plays in disease. In May, he lost about $1.2 million in federal funding for in the coming year due to the Harvard freeze. Four departmental grants worth $24 million that funded training of doctoral students also were canceled as part of the fight with the Trump administration, Quackenbush said. 'I'm in a position where I have to really think about, 'Can I revive this research?'' he said. 'Can I restart these programs even if Harvard and the Trump administration reached some kind of settlement? If they do reach a settlement, how quickly can the funding be turned back on? Can it be turned back on?' The researchers all agreed that the funding cuts have little or nothing to do with the university's fight against antisemitism. Some, however, argue changes at Harvard were long overdue and pressure from the Trump administration was necessary. Bertha Madras, a Harvard psychobiologist who lost funding to create a free, parent-focused training to prevent teen opioid overdose and drug use, said she's happy to see the culling of what she called 'politically motivated social science studies.' White House pressure a good thing? Madras said pressure from the White House has catalyzed much-needed reform at the university, where several programs of study have 'really gone off the wall in terms of being shaped by orthodoxy that is not representative of the country as a whole.' But Madras, who served on the President's Commission on Opioids during Trump's first term, said holding scientists' research funding hostage as a bargaining chip doesn't make sense. 'I don't know if reform would have happened without the president of the United States pointing the bony finger at Harvard,' she said. 'But sacrificing science is problematic, and it's very worrisome because it is one of the major pillars of strength of the country.' Quackenbush and other Harvard researchers argue the cuts are part of a larger attack on science by the Trump administration that puts the country's reputation as the global research leader at risk. Support for students and post-doctoral fellows has been slashed, visas for foreign scholars threatened, and new guidelines and funding cuts at the NIH will make it much more difficult to get federal funding in the future, they said. It also will be difficult to replace federal funding with money from the private sector. 'We're all sort of moving toward this future in which this 80-year partnership between the government and the universities is going to be jeopardized,' Quackenbush said. 'We're going to face real challenges in continuing to lead the world in scientific excellence.'
Al Arabiya
a day ago
- Al Arabiya
The Gaza tragedy and the dismantling of the Palestinian cause
In Gaza, hunger is no longer a metaphor or a figure of speech – it is a declared death, backed by statistics and documented testimonies. In just one day, last Monday, Palestinian medical sources announced the death of five adults due to complications caused by hunger and malnutrition. This brings the total number of deaths from famine since the war began on October 7, 2023, to 197 people, including 93 children, who died silently under the watch of the so-called civilized world. And we're not talking about a famine caused by a natural disaster, but rather by a deliberate policy, closed crossings, bodies worn down by siege, and cries for help so faint they never reach international institutions. For all the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app. The Gaza Strip, densely populated with 2.4 million people, has become the stage of a humanitarian catastrophe that is no longer just 'worsening' – it has crossed the line of shock into something resembling normalization. Figures from UNRWA show that malnutrition cases among children under the age of five have doubled between March and June. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization raises the alarm, reporting that one in every five children in Gaza City is suffering from severe malnutrition, warning that the continued siege will claim even more lives. This raises the question: How did we get here? How did famine become a weapon of war and a familiar image? Where are the international human rights organizations and Western institutions? Why the silence in the face of Gaza's children dying of hunger? How many more images does the world need to understand that what's happening in Gaza has gone far beyond reason? The truth is, Gaza has become a mirror reflecting the world's betrayal. The famine there is not fate or divine will – it's the result of a long siege and systematic strangulation policies that have left people with no way to live. While Gaza burns and homes are demolished with people still inside, hope is murdered every day in the eyes of those who survive. What's happening in Gaza is not just a food crisis – it is a moral collapse of the so-called civilized world. Today's generation is witnessing a war being waged on souls who have nothing left to eat, and watching a global system fail. A generation that now understands peace isn't made in major capitals – it's born out of the recognition of tragedy, the ability to feel for others, the cries of the hungry, and the tragic face of humanity. Even though international humanitarian law clearly defines starvation of civilians as a war crime – stating that 'starving civilian populations as a method of warfare is prohibited' – the UN Security Council has passed resolutions condemning the use of hunger as a weapon and labeling it a grave violation of international law. But the truth is, what's happening in Gaza doesn't exist in a historical vacuum. The narrative of starvation warfare is not unique to Gaza – it has been used before in places like Africa, Bosnia, and elsewhere. This reveals that the notion of humanity and human rights is, in reality, selective and driven by political will, not governed by international law. Amid this ongoing tragedy, Saudi diplomacy once again moved the needle and stirred global conscience with a diplomatic breakthrough. This effort resulted in France, the UK, and Canada announcing their intention to recognize the State of Palestine – a practical step toward a two-state solution, and a message that the time has come for real international action to resolve the conflict, stabilize the region, and build a foundation for peace. This wasn't just symbolic – it was a move that restored the human face of the Palestinian cause, which had been on the brink of being dismantled.
Arab News
2 days ago
- Arab News
Sindh to deploy first female bike ambulance squad to reach patients in congested areas
KARACHI: Pakistan's southern Sindh province will deploy its first cohort of female bike ambulance responders by the end of the current quarter, health authorities said on Wednesday, adding the women will be part of a gender-inclusive emergency response team and operate motorbikes to reach patients in hard-to-access areas. The initiative, launched by Sindh Integrated Emergency and Health Services (SIEHS-1122), aims to improve access to pre-hospital care in congested urban neighborhoods where conventional ambulances are often delayed. It also marks a move toward greater gender representation in emergency services, with female and male responders working in integrated teams across Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur. 'By the end of this quarter, 50 trained female responders will be deployed across Sindh — each stationed at designated take-off points to deliver swift care,' SIEHS said in a statement. 'They'll be riding 150cc bikes, not the usual 70cc — purpose-built vehicles fitted with essential life-saving equipment, communication devices, and emergency drugs.' According to SIEHS, the responders underwent four weeks of field-based training in simulated emergency conditions, including drills and navigation under heat stress, to prepare them for rapid medical intervention in densely populated localities. Each bike is equipped to function as a mobile unit for stabilizing patients prior to transport, and the service is expected to complement existing ambulance fleets already operating in the province under the 1122 emergency network. The statement said the initiative will help Sindh join a growing list of jurisdictions worldwide adopting bike-based emergency models to shorten response times and expand coverage in urban and peri-urban areas. SIEHS said the program builds on earlier initiatives, including the deployment of female ambulance drivers in Sanghar, and reflects ongoing efforts to improve community-level access to emergency care while promoting gender inclusion in public service roles.
