QUETTA A child of 10 months has tested positive for polio, raising to three the number of victims of the deadly disease in Balochistan this year.

Sources in the Expanded Programme on Immunisation told Dawn on Wednesday that Khyber Khan, of a village in Ziarat, had not received a single dose of oral polio vaccine. Tests on samples sent to Islamabad confirmed that the virus detected in the boy was P3, not a dangerous form of the disease.

The earlier two cases of polio were detected in Pishin in May and Qila Abdullah in June. The areas are dominated by religious parties and the Taliban who oppose the anti-polio campaign and describe it as part of a conspiracy of the Untied State and its allies against Muslims.

With the Ziarat case, the number of polio cases detected in the country this year has risen to 20, six in the NWFP, three in Balochistan and 11 in Sindh.