ISLAMABAD: A new polio case was reported on Saturday from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) — the third in the country in five days.

According to Dr Rana Safdar, chief of the Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for polio, the virus still prevails in a pocket adjacent to Afghanistan and aggressive vaccination campaigns will be launched there.

An official of the National Institute of Health (NIH) told Dawn that an 18-month-old girl of the Frontier Region of Peshawar was confirmed as suffering from the disease.

“The girl had received three doses of polio vaccine and the sample was collected on Sept 26. The nationwide polio count has reached 36 as compared to 224 cases during the same period last year,” he said.

This year, 15 cases have been reported from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 11 from Fata, six from Balochistan and four from Sindh.

Dr Safdar said: “There is a pocket in the FR, Peshawar, and Khyber tribal region, close to the Afghan border, in which poliovirus exists and three cases of polio have been reported recently from other side of the border.”

“The last vaccination campaign in these areas was carried out on Sept 14 and it has been decided that aggressive campaigns will be conducted to eradicate the virus from the area,” he said. He pointed out that population movement in the area was fast as around 100,000 frequently moved between there and the settled areas.

Published in Dawn, October 4th, 2015

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