August 05, 2008	Tuesday	Sha'aban 2, 1429

KARACHI, Aug 4: Health authorities on Monday confirmed the prevalence of polio virus in a child who died in a hospital early last month.

The manager of Sindh’s Expanded Programme on Immunisation, Dr Mazhar Khamesani, told Dawn that 13-month-old Afghan boy, Lutfullah, had a history of three doses of vaccine against preventive diseases and six supplementary polio preventive doses.

The National Institute of Health (NIH), which conducts laboratory tests for suspected polio patients, informed Dr Khamesani on Monday that the child had tested positive for the dreaded virus.

With the latest Karachi case, the number of polio victims this year has risen to 24 — 12 in Sindh, two in Punjab, seven in NWFP and three in Balochistan.The onset of paralysis in the Afghan boy was reported on July 3.

The first stool collection for laboratory purposes was done on July 8. The boy had received the last OPV dose on June 10.

Lutfullah died at hospital on July 9, before the results of the first sampling were available, Dr Khamesani said.

Earlier, an eight-month-old boy from Saddar town had tested positive for polio. He had died in June.

Dr Khamesani said that sometime NIH findings were publicised prematurely, adding that stool samples of the two latest victims of Karachi had been sent to the CDC Laboratory in Atlanta to ascertain whether the boys had died because of the virus.

He lamented that the NIH had informed the relevant quarters verbally about its findings, and had not given anything in writing so far.