Polio case reported from Karak

Total count from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa increases to 12

KARAK: A fresh polio case has been reported in the province on Saturday, taking the count from the province to 12.

Officials at the provincial Polio Emergency Operation Centre said the new case has been reported from the Takht-e-Nusrati area of Karak district. This is the first such case from the district in at least the past two years.

They added that the virus had been detected in samples obtained from a 14-month-old child.

The polio programme officials said parents of the infant had previously refused to administer anti-polio drops to the child. The infection was confirmed when sampled shared with the National Institute of Health Islamabad tested positive for the poliovirus, they added.

The other cases reported in the province this year have been reported from Lakki Marwat (10 cases) and Tank (one case). So far this year, 22 polio cases have been reported across the country, with Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa accounting for 12, six in Sindh, three in Balochistan and one in Punjab.

The case comes soon after the K-P government completed a five-day polio immunisation drive across the province on February 17.

Lakki Marwat remains a hotbed for polio cases. With as many as 32 cases reported from the district last year, 10 have been reported so far this year, including four cases in February.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 1^st, 2020.