Peshawar has now been declared the largest reservoir of endemic polio virus in the world. PHOTO: AFP
Yet another child has been diagnosed with polio. According to the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) health department official, 11-month-old Shaista, a resident of Surezai, Peshawar, has been infected with the crippling disease.
Shaista had not received a single dose of the oral polio vaccine. However, this incidence of the disease does not add to the toll for 2014 as the onset of paralysis occurred on December 31, 2013. After Shaista’s case, the total number of polio cases from 2013 has increased to 92.
Peshawar has now been declared the largest reservoir of endemic polio virus in the world. On January 17, the World Health Organization declared over 90% of last year’s cases across the country originated from the provincial capital.
On January 19, this year’s first polio cases were confirmed – all four of them were from North Waziristan Agency (NWA). This is in line with 2013, when 65 polio cases were confirmed in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), of these 35 were from NWA.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 24th, 2014.
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