PESHAWAR, Aug 28: Polio continues to cause scare in Bannu district of the province and a fresh polio case has been reported there, bringing the total number of cases in the province to six this year.

“The National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad has confirmed that 11-month-old Bas Bibi, daughter of Siraj, has had poliomyelitis,” Alamzeb Khan, Bannu-based campaign officer of the Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI) of the World Health Organisation (WHO), told Dawn on Monday.

He said the child currently residing in Arsla Mohallah of the Metakhel village of Bannu, hailed from Afghanistan. She had been administered six oral polio vaccines (OPV), but at the time of receiving the drops she was probably malnourished.

According to Mr Khan, OPV often remains ineffective if the recipient is malnourished or suffers from low immunity or has diarrhoea.

Earlier this month, the health department confirmed the two-year-old Fazalullah, son of Khalilur Rehman, as a polio case in the same locality of the same district.

He said Fazalullah’s family had been refusing to administer oral polio vaccines (OPVs), and during the past two years, Fazalullah had been administered anti-polio drops only once, and that too when he was out of his home with the family.

According to the WHO official, refusal by families in southern districts to administer OPVs to their children had become a problem. His father, an unauthorized medical practitioner in the same locality, was reluctant to immunize his children and his elder son had also not been vaccinated. Three cases of polio had been detected in May last.

Adnan Khan, 2, was diagnosed positive for polio virus on May 18, after which Asma, 3, met the same fate in Dir district on May 22 and Haseena, 2 in Bannu district on May 26.

The official said the virus found in a child in Bannu district had its origin in the Helmond province of Afghanistan. The area where the child lived is close to the Orewala refugee camp in Bannu. Similarly, the genetic mapping had shown that the case diagnosed in Dir district had connection with the Kunar province in Afghanistan.

All these children were administered anti-polio drops, the official said, adding that the first polio case of the year in the province had been detected in March.

An official at the PEI of the WHO for NWFP and Fata said here that a 14-month-old boy, Raees Khan, was diagnosed a polio patient despite having administered polio vaccines.

He said the child belonging to the Sulmankhel tribe belonged to the Lachra union council in the Dera Ismail Khan district.

His father had migrated to Pakistan from Gardez about 30 years ago, he said, adding that the child had received 11 doses of oral polio vaccine.

The WHO official said that they were trying their best to put brakes on the polio outbreak in Bannu district. In this connection, he said, a special immunization campaign had been carried out in Bannu.