MULTAN, May 29: Nine cases of acute flaccid paralysis have been reported from Lodhran district in the first five months of the current year.

Of the nine cases among children, one belonging to the Haveli Naseer Khan area has been declared affected with polio virus by the donor agencies who are funding the campaign against the disease.

Lodhran district health officer Dr Fazal Karim said the World Health Organization and Unicef wanted a strict surveillance of the anti-polio campaign, and for this purpose they had directed to report all AFP cases.

He said the international institutions had set up targets for the reporting of such cases for various districts according to their respective population. For instance Lodhran district, having a population of 1.2 million, was given a target of six AFP cases to be reported during the current year.

However, an extensive surveillance drive enabled the health department to detect nine AFP cases in the district.

Dr Fazal Karim said tests of all cases were sent to the National Institute of Health to ascertain whether the paralysis was due to polio. Reports of six of the cases had been received, and none of them was paralyzed due to the polio virus.

He claimed that the polio case of Haveli Naseer Khan could not be reported to the health authorities and, therefore, was described as polio-affected by the authorities without its verification through tests.

A team of the WHO and Unicef has reportedly visited the district on a fact-finding mission to probe the high rate of AFP cases.

Paediatricians said the ultimate result of an AFP victim was the paralysis of muscles irrespective of whether he or she was affected by the polio virus or there were other reasons.

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