Seven more polio cases detected

PESHAWAR/ DI KHAN: Health officials on Thursday confirmed that seven more children have caught the deadly poliovirus, taking the number of polio patients in the country to 194 this year.

Till Thursday afternoon, the National Institute of Health, Islamabad had confirmed the presence of the virus in four-month-old Zubaid, son of Zafar, a resident of Jehangirabad village in Sheikhan union council, Peshawar.

According to an official of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa health department, the child had not received a single dose of the oral polio vaccine.

Sheikhan UC is located along the border with Khyber Agency and a majority of the area’s children could not be vaccinated in the government’s Sehat ka Insaf drive, the official said.

However, by the late evening, six more children tested positive for the virus; another from Peshawar, two from Khyber Agency and one each from Karachi, North Waziristan Agency and Mardan. The samples had been collected between September 3 and September 20.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 3^rd, 2014.