— AP

ISLAMABAD: Efforts of the “under performing” special polio cell of prime minister on Monday received another jolt within a span of one-and-a-half months as a new case of crippling disease surfaced in Khyber agency.

“The child never received polio drops during the routine national campaigns putting a question mark over the emergency anti-polio campaign initiated by the Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani last year besides making a dent in credibility of the recent year's drive”, said a senior federal official while sharing a report on the new polio case.

Some 35 million children under the age of five will be targeted nationwide during the campaign that has already started on Jan 29.

Though the federal government's polio emergency campaign last year was spearheaded by the premier, the desired results could not be achieved as cases continued to emerge. Pakistan is currently ranked last in fight against the crippling virus with 198 polio cases recorded last year.

The federal official said laboratory reports have confirmed that one new (type-I wild virus) case was detected in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Khyber Agency) on Feb 11.

According to details shared by the official, the number of polio cases recorded this year has alarmingly jumped to eight  “ two cases reported from Quetta, one each from Mirpurkhas (Sindh), Peshawar, Lakki Marwat, Dera Ismail Khan, Kohat and Khyber Agency.

Commenting on the details of the new case, the official said: “Mussawir Jaan, son of Mena Jaan, a 12-month-old baby boy was confirmed to be infected with polio virus”.

However, despite repeated attempts, the Adviser to PM on polio Shahnaz Wazir Ali was not available for her comments on the new case.