At least five new polio cases were reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) on Thursday, taking the recent tally of such cases across the province to 88. According to the Health officials, one polio case was reported from Bannu, DI Khan, Mohmand Agency each and two from Tank districts of KP. A 2-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy were both diagnosed with the crippling disease in the region of Tank.
Dera Ismail Khan (DI Khan) reported another 2-year-old girl and a 2-and-a-half-year-old boy who had been diagnosed with the virus. A 6-month-old boy in district Mohmand, Peshawar was revealed as a victim of poliovirus.
Polio cases around the country have reached a figure of 123. Meanwhile, Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for polio has confirmed the 20th polio case in the Sindh province in 2019.
According to EOC, a five-month-old baby girl from Dadu contracted the polio virus which has affected her left lower limb. It may be noted that this case is not the first case of 2020 but is of 6th December 2019, which is the date of onset. The child belongs to UC Patt of Dadu district from a family with a poor socio-economic status. The girl had only one dose of the polio vaccine while she had not received any IPV or routine immunisation except for the BCG vaccine.
After a satisfactory nationwide polio campaign in December, EOC Sindh will now do a case response in districts of Sindh from 13th to 19th January to further try to stop virus circulation.
This case response will be conducted in 702+ union councils of Sindh and will target 5.12 million children in selected location in 20+ districts of the province.
The campaigns are planned frequently until June 2020 and these along with case responses bring forward a good opportunity to stop polio cases and turn the tide.
