Among this year’s 56 cases, four are from Sindh, three from Punjab and nine from K-P, while 40 cases have surfaced from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Frontier Regions.
Two more cases of polio have surfaced in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and the tribal areas. With these, the total number of children infected in 2013 rises to 56, just two less than the figure which loomed over the country in 2012.
The National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad confirmed the presence of the crippling disease in two more children on Sunday. The NIH report said the children had not been administered oral polio vaccine (OPV).
Muhammad, an eight-month-old resident of union council Bazid Khel in village Marozai, Peshawar district, was among those infected.
The other case was reported from Mir Ali tehsil of North Waziristan. Thirteen-month-old Alfa is a resident of Ali Khel, Zar Gul Khel village.
Officials familiar with the matter fear this year’s polio count may cross last year’s 58 and there are concerns of a possible travel ban on Pakistan.
Polio originating from the country has been found in Egypt, Palestine and Syria. A Syrian minister on Sunday confirmed that last week’s confirmed 10 polio cases reported in northeast Syria had in fact emerged from Pakistan.
Among this year’s 56 cases, four are from Sindh, three from Punjab and nine from K-P, while 40 cases have surfaced from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Frontier Regions.
The global battle against the poliovirus has largely been a success story, with the total number of cases being reduced from 350,000 in 1988 to 223 last year. India, which once accounted for half of the world’s cases of polio, was taken off the endemic list in 2012 after a massive public health campaign.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 4th,2013.
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These areas are ruled by Taliban. The credit for polio cases to be given to Hakimullah Masud.
Polio originating from the country has been found in Egypt, Palestine and Syria. Pakistan's gift to the ummah
Isolate and quarantine all Pakistanis.
Fear is that Polio may become second largest product being exported from Pakistan, after the first product "terror".
@Zif: people in punjab,kashmir and sindh dont reject drops
The price that we have to pay for being paranoid!!
What Government of Pakistan will do when the Polio vaccination staff is threatened, beaten and killed by the TTP militants.
I am expecting that children who could not get any Polio drops, where would they be standing after few years time when the children had not been given the required polio drops in time.