PESHAWAR: Four new cases of polio have been reported in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), raising the total number of affectees to 115 in 2019.
The reports stated that the first case was from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Tank district where a 15 months old was diagnosed with the virus and the second case was of a 17-month-old girl from Bannu district.
On the other hand, a seven-year-old girl from Sukkur and a 22-months-male from Tando Allah Yar were diagnosed with the virus in Sindh. The affected boy has passed away due to severe prior illnesses which had lasted two weeks before the polio diagnosis.
Read more: Fourteen polio cases reported this year in Sindh
Officials claim reluctance on the part of parents to immunize children against polio is the main reason behind the spike in the number of polio cases in Pakistan this year. Our country is among the three countries in the world, including Afghanistan and Nigeria, where poliovirus still exists.
Earlier in December, Chief Minister Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah launched an anti-polio drive at the Janat Gul Hospital in the Gadap Town area of Karachi.
During the campaign, more than two point three million children in Karachi and nine million children in other parts of the province, under the age of five years, were administered a polio vaccine.
Also read: Polio cases caused by oral vaccine: reports
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