KATHMANDU, JULY 23

The Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) is all set to inoculate polio drops to children below five years old from July 24 as a highly contagious poliovirus was detected in sewage in the city.

The health workers will visit every doorstep for this campaign and children who had received vaccines regularly in the past will also be inoculated, the KMC said.

Oral polio vaccines are inoculated thrice in the sixth, tenth and fourteenth weeks and the children are vaccinated in their nine months.

The KMC has estimated some 63,000 children under five years need polio vaccines and the highest number of the children is in ward no. 6, while the lowest number is assumed to be in ward no. 1.

The KMC said that polio has not been detected in people in the country since 2010 but the campaign now is initiated as the virus was detected in sewage.

The polio virus was detected in the water at the confluence of the Tukucha and Bagmati rivers. A sample collected from the confluence tested positive for the polio virus. Nepal last witnessed this virus in humans in 2010, and the country was declared polio-free in 2014. The government had aimed to eradicate polio by 2026.

The sample collected on May 26 was sent to a Bangkok-based laboratory for testing, which resulted positive. The result came on July 13. It was also shared during a program that the new variant of the virus is 'vaccine-derived polio type-3,' not 'wild polio.'