PESHAWAR, May 9: Two new polio cases were reported in Mardan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Bara tehsil of Khyber Agency on Thursday.

Officials here said eight-month-old Nauman Khan from Mardan had tested positive for polio.

They said the child didn’t receive any dose of polio vaccine as his parents turned vaccinators away saying Islam prohibited vaccination.

The officials said Fawad Khan, a resident of Bara tehsil in Khyber Agency, had also tested positive for polio.

According to them, on average, 34,000 children remain unvaccinated in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in every polio campaign due to their parents’ opposition to vaccination and thus, putting vaccinated children at risk.

The officials said the people’s refusal to vaccinate their children and health workers’ inability to reach children in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Federally Administered Tribal Areas were to blame for the efforts to contain polio in the country.“There is no way to do away with vaccination refusals. Despite efforts, the people continue to refuse oral polio virus in certain pickets of the province. Assassination of health workers and dangers to the life of lady health workers and vaccinators are blocking vaccination of children,” an official said.

The officials said there was no effort to mobilise the people for vaccination.

According to them, there is a need to create demand for vaccine through awareness so the people could themselves bring their children to the expanded programme on immunisation centres.

The officials said in the current precarious circumstances, where vaccination meant inviting the Taliban’s wrath, the health department was looking into possibility of the methods to vaccinate children and ensure safety of the people involved in the exercise.

They said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had reported four polio cases this year and of them, two were from Mardan.

The officials said the health department was planning to hold a meeting soon after elections to see if Mardan was home to polio virus like Peshawar.

“We have conducted five polio campaigns not only in Peshawar but also in Mardan since January 2013. Both are high-risk areas for polio. Peshawar had been declared as polio reservoir by the World Health Organisation, while Mardan has recorded four polio cases in 2012 and thus, could pose more threats to children in other districts,” an official said.

The officials said they had recorded cases in Mardan and Malakand in February and immediate vaccination was carried out in both districts.

They said after each case, the health department carried out rapid response campaign to protect children from virus.

The officials said the department in collaboration with World Health Organisation would take into consideration the techniques to be applied to contain virus in Mardan and save it from going Peshawar’s way.

They said small clusters of refusals posed serious threats to the campaign in Mardan, where quality of polio campaigns had been much below the target in the last one and half year due to mismanagement.

“Now it is feared that virus may be in circulation there,” an official said. The officials said the health department in collaboration with Unicef was making field efforts to do away with immunisation refusals.