Pakistan Navy ship Yarmook participates in UAE defense exhibitions

ISLAMABAD: Health authorities have confirmed two new cases of wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) in Pakistan, the country’s polio program said on Thursday.
Polio is a paralyzing disease that has no cure. Multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of 5 is essential to provide children high immunity against the disease.
The South Asian country has been witnessing an intense resurgence of the virus and reported a total of 74 cases last year, raising several questions about the gains made in recent years in the fight against the viral disease.
Health authorities have confirmed one new case of the virus in the Kambar district of the southern Sindh province and another in the Mandi Bahauddin district of the Punjab province, according to the country’s polio program.
“This is the third polio case from Sindh and the first from Punjab this year, bringing the total number of cases in the country to five,” the polio program said in a statement.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the last two countries in the world where polio remains an endemic.
Immunization campaigns have succeeded in most countries and have come close in Pakistan, but persistent problems remain. In the early 1990s, Pakistan reported around 20,000 cases annually but in 2018 the number dropped to eight cases. Six cases were reported in 2023 and only one in 2021.
Pakistan’s polio program began in 1994 but efforts to eradicate the virus have since been undermined by vaccine misinformation and opposition from some religious hard-liners who say immunization is a foreign ploy to sterilize Muslim children or a cover for Western spies. Militant groups also frequently attack and kill members of polio vaccine teams.
Pakistan this month concluded its first nationwide anti-polio campaign of 2025, with 99 percent of the targets achieved, according to the polio program. The campaign, conducted on Feb. 3-9, vaccinated more than 45 million children.
“[An] fIPV-OPV (fractional dose inactivated poliovirus vaccine-oral polio vaccine) campaign is underway in Karachi and Quetta Division to vaccinate nearly 1 million children with the injectable and oral polio vaccines for an added immunity boost,” the polio program said.
“Moreover, a targeted vaccination activity in 104 union councils bordering Afghanistan or having Afghan refugee camps/populations is also in progress (February 24-28) to vaccinate over 0.66 million children, to reduce the risk of cross-border and internal poliovirus transmission.”
“The Polio Programme urges all parents to get their children vaccinated against polio at every opportunity to keep them protected from this devastating disease,” it added.
This week, the World Health Organization said Saudi Arabia had reaffirmed its $500 million pledge to eradicate polio from Pakistan and Afghanistan under the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI).
The GPEI hopes to declare an end to the wild virus and the vaccine-derived variant by 2027 and 2029, respectively, compared with a previous deadline of 2026 for both forms.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s central moon sighting committee will meet today, Friday, to sight the crescent for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, Pakistani state media reported.
Fasting during Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam, wherein Muslims abstain from food and drink from sunrise till sunset for a month.
This is followed by the sighting of the new moon and is marked by Eid Al-Fitr, a religious holiday and celebration that is observed by Muslims across the world.
“A meeting of Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee will be held in Peshawar on Friday for the sighting of the Moon of Ramadan ul Mubarak,” the Radio Pakistan broadcaster reported.
Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee Chairman Maulana Abdul Khabir Azad will preside over the meeting, according to the report.
“The Zonal Ruet-e-Hilal Committees will also meet separately at their respective headquarters,” it read.
Pakistan’s national space agency has forecast that the Ramadan moon will be invisible to the naked eye on Feb. 28, which means that the South Asian country will likely mark the beginning of the holy month from Mar. 2.
The crescent will be difficult to sight on Friday due to its low altitude and distance, the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) was quoted as saying by the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) news agency. The angular distance between the sun and the moon will be 7 degrees on Feb. 28, making the crescent “invisible to the naked eye” that day, it added.
But in Pakistan, the Ruet-e-Hilal Committee is tasked with sighting the moon for new Islamic months. Dates for Ramadan and Eid festivals are confirmed by the committee through visual observations and based on testimonies received of the crescent being sighted from several parts of the country.