QUETTA: With the emergence of two new polio cases in Balochistan, the number of victims of the crippling disease in the province has reached 21 in six months.

Officials of the Expanded Programme of Immunisation identified the new patients as 17-month-old Hafsa, a resident of Killi Karbala in Pishin district, and 13-month-old Inayatullah, a resident of Qila Abdullah district.

“We have received their positive blood reports from the Islamabad laboratory,” officials said on Saturday.

A vaccination campaign was suspended in Quetta on Nov 26 after a gun attack on polio workers in which four vaccinators, among them three women, lost their lives.

Published in Dawn, December 21st, 2014