Five more polio cases reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Three polio cases were reported in Bannu and one each in Charsadda and North Waziristan.
PESHAWAR (Dunya News) - Five more cases of polio have been surfaced in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), raising the tally of polio cases to 43 in the province and 53 across the country in the current year, Dunya News reported on Wednesday.
According to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Emergency Operation Centre, new polio cases were reported in three districts of the province including Charsadda, Bannu and North Waziristan.
The Emergency Operation Centre further informed that three polio cases were reported in Bannu and one each in Charsadda and North Waziristan. The polio virus has been detected in three minor girls and two boys.
Polio is a highly infectious disease that invades the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis in a matter of hours. It is now endemic in only two countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
A $5.5 billion global eradication plan was launched last year with the aim of vaccinating 250 million children multiple times each year to stop the virus finding new footholds, and stepping up surveillance in more than 70 countries.
Pakistan’s polio cases are declining, with just 54 cases of polio virus were reported last year, down more than 80 percent from 2014, when the country suffered a large spike in cases.
Efforts to eliminate polio in Pakistan have became complicated in recent years, as polio workers have faced attacks by militants who say the health teams are Western spies, or that the vaccines they administer are intended to sterilise children.
