Toll: 85 - Two new polio cases confirmed

7 cases surfaced in Punjab, 8 in Sindh, 10 in K-P, total of 60 from FATA – out of which 31 were from North Waziristan.

PESHAWAR:

Two new cases of poliovirus have been confirmed in the country at the stroke of the New Year, according to an official of the National Institute of Health, Islamabad.

Atifullah, 13-month-old son of Khan Sahib, a resident of Aba Khel Mandau village of Makin tehsil, South Waziristan Agency is the latest victim of the virus in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata). The boy had received no dosage of the polio vaccination.

Meanwhile, another case of the crippling disease surfaced in Karachi. Fatima, 12-month-old daughter of Mehmood Gul, a resident of Madina Colony in Gadap town, has been diagnosed with type 1 serotype of the virus.

Stool samples of both the children had been sent to the NIH last year, but the virus has just been confirmed. This takes the number of confirmed polio cases in 2013 to 85. Seven cases surfaced in Punjab, eight in Sindh, 10 from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and a total of 60 from Fata – out of which 31 alone were from North Waziristan.

The prevalent attitude among the public in the tribal areas is not helping either, with parents often refusing to get their children vaccinated.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 2^nd, 2014.