QUETTA: No polio case has been reported in Balochistan for over a year.

This was stated by provincial Chief Secretary Babar Yaqoob Fateh Mohammad at a meeting held here with the country chief of Unicef and the provincial chief of World Health Organisation (WHO).

The chief secretary said that 73 cases of polio were detected in the province in 2012. But, since the last quarter of that year no polio case had been reported from any part of the province, he added.

Most of polio cases in the province were reported from two districts, Qila Abdullah and Pishin.

A three-day anti-polio campaign in three districts — Pishin, Qila Abdullah and Quetta — was completed on Thursday. Official sources said that the campaign remained successful as about 95 per cent of children in the three districts had been vaccinated against polio.

Deputy Commissioner of Quetta Abdul Latif Kakar said that the three-day campaign was followed by another campaign of two days during which vaccinators tried to reach the remaining children.

Sources said vaccinators completed the campaigns despite threats of attacks by extremist groups.

Balochistan’s Secretary Information Abdullah Tareen, who supervised the anti-polio campaign in Pishin district, told Dawn that the number of cases in which parents did not allow vaccinators to administer anti-polio drops to their children had reduced. Now people often bring their children to health centres for vaccination, he added.