KARACHI, Sept 6: With the detection of a polio case in Baldia Town, the tally of confirmed polio cases in Sindh for the current year has reached five, said Dr Salma Kouser Ali, project director of Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI), Sindh, on Thursday.She was briefing a group of Unicef and the World Health Organisation (WHO) officials from Geneva and Islamabad led by Dr Rafah S. Aziz, senior adviser to Unicef on global polio eradication initiative, at her office.

As many as 12 polio cases have so far been confirmed throughout the country during the year. According to Dr Ali, like four cases which have been reported in Sindh and confirmed by the relevant authorities, the latest case was also imported from outside the province. The case was reported in the mid of August and now has been confirmed by NIH and Geneva lab of the WHO as well, she informed the participants of the meeting.

Earlier, one confirmed polio case had been reported from Baldia Town (Karachi), two from Khairpur and one from Jacobabad.

According to Dr Ali, the latest victim, four-year-old Akramullah, son of Mairaj, had moved to Karachi from Swat in August.

She highlighted the achievements of EPI Sindh in regard to the elimination of the polio virus in the province and also referred to some of the challenges. She also stressed the need for reviewing the current communication strategy and development of province/district specific plans with the involvement of local partners. She added that a lack of trust or misconceptions regarding vaccines among people also needed to be addressed with the support of the media and religious leaders.

Dr Ali said that Sindh was all poised to eradicate the polio virus circulation during the year, while all measures had been taken to check the infiltration of the virus. Almost all the cases confirmed so far in the province pertained to children of travellers and migrants, she said.

Others who were present during the briefing included Liliane Boualam, a WHO technical officer, Melissa Corkum, Unicef’s programme communication officer at Islamabad, Dr Asif Aslam of the Unicef Karachi, and Dr Laila Rizvi.

Later the group visited some nomadic populations in Gulshan Town, where mop-up polio vaccination campaign concluded on Thursday.

In the meantime, the Sindh health officials have detected a case suspected of carrying polio virus. According to a source in EPI Sindh, the stool sample of an under-five male child from Thatta have been sent to the authorised laboratory for confirmation of the polio virus.

The boy has developed symptoms similar to those affected by the polio virus, but any official version about the status of the case would come only after receiving reports from the National Institute of Health, Islamabad, added the source.