KARACHI, March 20: Health authorities on Thursday confirmed finding a third polio case this year, in Sindh’s Shikarpur district.

With this case, the number of polio-affected children has reached 35 in the country that has already missed the WHO target to eradicate the disease by 2005.

Of the 32 cases in 2007, 12 were reported from Sindh. The spurt of cases in the NWFP relates to continued inaccessibility to children due to the security situation in the province.

Emergence of eight cases over the past six months in Sindh shows a poor performance of the provincial health authorities.

Since the beginning of this year, one polio case each was confirmed in Hyderabad and Nawabshah.

The latest victim of WPV1 is a 16-month-boy of the district’s Chango Rahujo union council, said a source privy to the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI).

Sindh, director-general health, Dr Ghulam Nabi Memon said that samples had been sent recently to the National Institute of Health which had now verbally informed that the boy had been affected by polio virus.

Shikarpur EDO (health) Dr Abdul Wahab Mahar claimed that the boy had been administrated oral polio vaccine in addition to routine vaccination.

During the sub-national polio campaign in the last week of February health officers concerned were told that the boy was running temperature and showing weakness.

After clinical examination, he was suspected to be positive for polio virus and then relevant samples were drawn as part of the Acute Flaccid Paralysis Surveillance.

EPI-Sindh director Dr Salma Ali claimed that the virus had travelled from Qambar district where the campaign was not carried out due to heavy monsoon rains and floods.

She said that besides Shikarpur, surveillance work would be carried out in the border districts of Larkana, Qambar, Sukkur, Khairpur and Jacobabad.

Replying to a question, she said the latest case had upset everyone and some personnel had been called from Karachi and other parts of the country to monitor ‘mopping up’ activities and to assess the re-emergence of polio virus in the province.