A seven-year-old child from Aceh’s Pidie regency was found to have tested positive for type 2 poliovirus earlier this month, the Health Ministry’s director general for disease control and prevention, Maxi Rein Rondonuwu, announced over the weekend.

The child previously showed symptoms of paralysis of their left leg, and is thought to have had no prior immunization, including polio shots. “I went to see the child the other day and found that they were still able to walk, albeit with a limp,” Maxi said in a statement on Saturday.

According to ministry records, coverage for both oral polio vaccination (OPV) and injected polio vaccination (IPV) in Aceh had been slowing over the past four years, with all regencies and cities within the province recording IPV coverage of less than 60 percent throughout 2022 alone.

Authorities have also pointed to unsanitary conditions as a probable cause of the new infection, after finding out that some local residents still defecate directly into a river where children are often found playing.

The discovery had prompted the government to declare the Pidie case to be an “extraordinary occurrence” (KLB), which would prompt the local health agency to step up surveillance measures, including running tests on fecal matter found in the river, in anticipation of more cases.

“Even though it is only one case, it has to be declared an extraordinary occurrence […] especially since the [case in Pidie] is of type 2 polio, which we thought we had eradicated,” Maxi explained.

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