PESHAWAR, Nov 24: Officials said on Thursday that they had detected at least four polio cases in the NWFP and Fata this year. “Surprisingly, all the four cases reported so far in the NWFP and Fata had received anti-polio drops,” the officials said. According to them, the efficacy of anti-polio drops has come under serious doubt.

Officials said a 14-month-old girl Safia of a Peshawar locality was confirmed last week as a polio patient. The girl had received 10 doses of anti-polio drops.

A 15-month-old boy, Attaullah, of Metokala village in Bajaur Agency, has also been diagnosed as a confirmed polio patient. The boy had eight doses of anti-polio drops, officials said.

Initially the child had developed fever, diarrhoea and respiratory tract infection for which he was taken to the agency headquarter hospitals in Bajaur Agency.

The doctors at the hospitals gave him multiple injections two days before his paralysis and later the doctors confirmed a case of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP), said officials.

“We suspect the case could be the result of a cross-border movement, because Afghanistan has recorded four polio cases this year,” an official said.

He said that ineffectiveness of the anti-polio drops had become a big problem, saying that a 10-month-old baby, Tasleema, of Tank district, was declared a confirmed case of polio early this year despite having three doses of anti-polio vaccine.

Another child, Bilal, of Peshawar district, diagnosed as positive for polio in January, had been given six doses of the vaccine.

Health workers said that anti-polio drops remain ineffective when the recipients had diarrhoea or suffered from low immunity or generalised weakness. They said the names along with addresses of such children should be recorded and be administered anti-polio drops by special teams.

“But the problem is that vaccinators are overburdened with work. They are also are not enough doctors to see if patients had some problems due to which the drops might have become ineffective,” a WHO official said.