QUETTA: A polio case has been detected in Chaman, a town along the Pak-Afghan border in Qila Abdullah district.

In 2016, 20 cases were reported from across the country out of which two were from Qila Abdullah.

Eighteen-month-old Ahmed Shah, son of Agha Shah, a resident of Mohalla Rah Mohammad in Mehmoodabad, was diagnosed with the poliovirus on July 3 in what is being termed by the health officials as the first case reported in Balochistan this year.

On Wednesday, the health department claimed that the child’s mother and grandmother had refused to get him vaccinated.

They said the boy had hardly received two to three doses of the vaccine since he was born.

The child’s father said that they got alarmed when Ahmed was running a high fever and was constipated.

He was taken to a local dispensary and later to the children’s hospital in the area, where doctors suspected the child was suffering from the crippling disease.

Health officials said that after the child’s stool samples were taken and other medical tests were carried out, it was confirmed that he was suffering from polio.

The next polio eradication campaign in the province is scheduled for July 24.

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2017