Tally crosses 100 as new polio cases detected

ISLAMABAD: The tally for the number of polio cases reported this year has entered triple digits as three more children, belonging to Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, have been infected with the crippling disease virus.

“The three children are male and the total number of cases for the current year has reached 101. New cases have been reported from the districts of Mirpurkhas and Swabi,” a National Institute of Health (NIH) official told Dawn.

“In Mirpurkhas, a 36-month-old child has been infected with the virus. He is a resident of tehsil Digri, union council (UC) Mir Khuda Bux. His parents claim that seven doses of polio were given to him. Two doses have been confirmed through the Routine Immunisation Card,” he said.

“The other child is a 72-month-old resident of tehsil Mirpurkhas UC 5. His lower limbs were paralysed and according to the family members as many as 10 doses of polio vaccines were administered to him,” he said.

While sharing details of the case from Swabi, the NIH official said that the six-month-old child belongs to tehsil Topi, UC Batakara.

This year, 101 cases have been reported so far, as compared to 12 in 2018 and eight in 2017.

Provincial data for the current year shows that 73 cases have been reported from KP, 16 from Sindh, seven from Balochistan and five from Punjab.

Published in Dawn, December 15th, 2019