WANA – Health authorities on Wednesday reported another wild polio case from the country’s North Waziristan tribal area.
Reports in local media said the total number of crippling disease cases increased to seven with all the cases reported from North Waziristan’s Mir Ali tehsil.
The Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) for Polio Eradication in erstwhile FATA confirmed that a seven-month-old girl has now tested positive for the contagious virus.
New cases in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa surfaced in the last two weeks despite a nationwide inoculation campaign that has seen polio workers go from door-to-door to administer drops to minors.
Federal Health Minister Abdul Qadir Baloch has likened the situation in the mountainous region to an outbreak, saying the authorities are on war footings against the virus.
Prior to the first poliovirus case which was reported earlier this year in April, the fifth most populous country spent 15-months without detecting a single case of the virus, the longest such period in its history.
Another child paralyzed as Pakistan reports fourth polio case of 2022
Polio is a highly infectious and debilitating disease that is usually spread through contaminated water or food. Invading the nervous system, the disease can cause total paralysis within hours.
The contagious virus thrived in the borderlands between Pakistan and Afghanistan where militants attacked and even killed anti-polio teams.
Pakistan begins nationwide polio immunisation campaign after reporting three new cases
