PESHAWAR, July 20: Polio crippled another child in the NWFP, bringing the number of such cases confirmed in the Frontier province to four this year. Dr Waheed Khan, deputy director of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI), NWFP, said that 11-month-old Mamoor son of Noor Ali of Bazidkhel was diagnosed positive for poliomyelitis four days ago.

“The boy had received seven doses of oral polio vaccine (OPV) during recurrent diarrhoea, which might have rendered the drops ineffective,” he said.

Ineffective OPV has become a big problem for the health department as well the Unicef, which supplies the vaccine.

Of the four children so far diagnosed positive for polio, three had received several drops of OPV.

A three-and-a-half-year-old girl, Waheeda, who lives in the Akora Khattak refugee camp in Nowshera district, was diagnosed positive for polio by the National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad this year despite having had 15 doses of anti-polio vaccine.

An eight-month-old Afghan boy, Hasanullah, developed polio at a refugee camp near Tirah in Khyber Agency in March this year. He had received two doses of OPV.

Representatives of the World Health Organisation said that vaccines had been procured by Unicef from recommended laboratories. He said that children needed at least 10 doses of OPV to be safe from the crippling ailment.

According to him, the OPV becomes ineffective if the recipients had diarrhoea, dysentery, anemia or other immunity-inhibiting disease. He said that doctors should accompany the vaccination teams to determine the children’s health.