PESHAWAR: A new polio case was reported from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) on Tuesday, making it the 14th such case in the tribal area this year — raising the countrywide count in 2015 to 41.

According to the Chief Minister's Polio Control Cell in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the crippling virus was detected in two-year-old Abu Sufyan of Landi Kotal town.

Fata recorded 178 polio cases last year compared to only 13 this year, before the current one, and is facing a challenge to maintain quality of vaccination, especially in border areas.

Earlier this year, the government launched campaigns simultaneously in the Fata and KP under Sehat Ka Ittehad programme, but later both continued with different dates due to which children missed vaccination.

The global polio eradication initiative, which previously thought that world would become free from polio virus by 2015, had revised the deadline to 2018 due to the Fata and KP situation.

The nationwide polio count has reached 41 as compared to 224 cases during the same period last year.

Also Read: Simultaneous anti-polio drive in Fata, KP can get results

It is pertinent to note here that Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world which have not been able to eradicate the polio-virus while no case of polio virus was reported in Nigeria over a year.