Number of polio victims reaches 15 as 2 more cases surface

PESHAWAR: Two new polio cases were reported from Bannu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Saturday, raising the number of polio victims to 15 in the country this year.

Health experts, however, feared the number of polio cases would grow further by the end of 2019, as health and polio workers have been facing multiple problems to eradicate the disease in Pakistan and particularly in KP and erstwhile tribal areas.

According to officials, the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Islamabad confirmed the two new polio cases.

Among the two children, one is a six-month girl baby diagnosed with polio. She belongs to Kotka Zafar Khan village of union council Ghora Bakakhel in Bannu district.

As per clinical history of the child, as reported by her father, the child was stable when she developed high grade fever on April 16, 2019.

She was then taken to a local physician and he prescribed her some medicine for fever.

According to her father, the child developed left-sided weakness on April 18, for which she was taken to the same physician on April 20 who advised CT Scan, which was normal.

The child was then referred to Dr Tariq Ayub, who labelled the child as hemiplegia and reported it as an AFP on April 21.

The child belongs to a poor family and authorities concerned in their reports claimed she had not received any dose of routine immunisation.

The second child, diagnosed with polio, is an eighth-month baby boy who also belongs to Bazida Kokalkhel, Lalozai union council, in Bannu district.

Officials quoting his mother said that the child was having fever for three to four days, for which they took him to a local physician on April 26, 2019 where a medical technician gave him an intramuscular injection on one gluteal muscle and then again another IM injection was given to him on April 27 on another gluteal muscle in the morning.

On the same day, his mother noticed weakness in his both lower limbs and left upper limb, for which they visited Women and Children Hospital Bannu wherefrom physician Dr Samiullah reported the case as AFP and labelled the child as “Left Hemiplegia” on April 28.

The child was later taken to Peshawar for further treatment and was admitted to the Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) Peshawar.

As happens in each and every polio case, officials concerned also claimed that the second child had also not got any dose of routine immunisation.

Like other areas, where polio workers have been facing security issues or refusals from parents or other elements opposing vaccination, here too the child receives one dose during supplementary immunisation (SIAs) activities and during the SIAs, the child was only finger marked and OPV was not given to the children. During the last six rounds up to March 2019, the child received no dose.

The child belongs to a poor family and his father is a carpenter. Out of 15 polio cases, eight cases have been reported from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.