ISLAMABAD – The latest victim to fall prey to the virus is a boy from the North Waziristan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where previous three cases were reported this year.
Reports in local media said a minor boy from North Waziristan was left paralysed by a crippling disease, it emerged on Wednesday.
Ministry of Health issued a statement, saying the wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) was confirmed in the boy of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province by the polio laboratory at the National Institute of Health, Islamabad.
The child was not administered anti-polio drops during the drive against the crippling disease.
The mountainous region of southern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has been identified by the polio programme as the epicenter after new poliovirus cases were detected.
Meanwhile, a five-day anti-polio campaign is currently underway across Pakistan. Nearly 43.3 million children under the age of five years will be administered the anti-polio vaccine.
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.
Around 70 polio workers have been killed in militant attacks since 2012 in the northwestern region of the country. Anti-polio drives have been running since 1994, while many people still considered it a Western conspiracy.
Pakistan begins nationwide polio immunisation campaign after reporting three new cases
In the most recent incident, a cop guarding a polio vaccination team was martyred after unidentified gunmen fired at him in Kohat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Saturday.
