PESHAWAR, Oct 25: As many as 18 confirmed cases of polio have been reported in different districts of the NWFP so far this year, with Dera Ismail Khan taking the lead with 10 cases, health officials told Dawn on Friday.

Special strategies have been adopted to prevent the outbreak of polio in DI Khan, including intensive monitoring and supervision in the area, said Dr Abdul Hamid Afridi, deputy director Expanded Programme on Immunisation, NWFP.

The other districts from where cases of polio have been reported are: Mohmand Agency, 2; Peshawar, 1; Bajuar Agency, 2; Hangu, 1; Khyber Agency, 1; and Nowshera 1.

From the high-risk district of the province, only five cases have been confirmed. Three cases have been detected in areas where no case had been found in the past two years — Bajuar two cases and Hangu one case.

Unfortunately, the EPI had a setback in the NWFP because of an outbreak of polio in DI Khan and frontier regions.

This apart, the concerted efforts yielded positive results otherwise, with cases of polio dropping to 18 in the year 2002 as compared to 419 reported in 1993.

During the current year, a total of eight round have been planned, four of which would be carried out in certain focused areas where door-t-door and child-to-child vaccination would be organised.

The health officials said the sick and sleeping children should also be administered polio drops and the people should cooperate with the members of the polio teams visiting from house to house.

The doctors also say the people should report to the health officials if they observe any abnormality in the feet of the children. For this purpose, the doctors say that an enhanced and active surveillance has been started to detect Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) cases.