A two-year-old boy from Khyber Agency was Wednesday confirmed to have polio, taking the total number of cases in the country to 50.
According to officials at the National Institute of Health in Islamabad, Sanaullah, son of Namdar, was first diagnosed at a clinic in Mirdad Khel, Khyber Agency on November 13. Subsequently, his stool samples were sent to Islamabad to confirm whether he was afflicted with polio.
“We have received the report (from NIH) and the lab tests have confirmed that Sanaullah was carrying the (polio) virus,” a senior health official told The Express Tribune on the condition of anonymity since he was not authorised to speak to the media.
The official added that the boy had been vaccinated during the short additional dose campaign. But since the virus was still prevalent in the area, he was infected.
Wednesday’s case brings the total number of polio cases in Pakistan to 50. So far this year as many as 16 cases have been reported from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, 15 from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 11 in Sindh, seven in Balochistan and one in Punjab. This is down from the nearly 300 cases reported in 2014.
Polio drive from Dec 14
A three-day anti-polio drive in Balochistan will kick off from December 14.
According to the Balochistan Coordinator for Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) Dr Syed Saifur Rehman, the campaign will cover 30 districts of the province and will target 2.4 million children, including 55,085 refugees.
“All security arrangements have been completed,” said Dr Rehman, adding that they had identified three high-risk districts in Quetta, Killa Abdullah and Pishin.
Further, as many as 6,463 mobile teams, 782 fixed-sites and 311 transit points will be part of the campaign.
No comments:
Post a Comment