QUETTA: A fresh case of crippling polio disease was confirmed in a five-year-old girl in Quetta on Wednesday bringing the total number of cases to five in Balochistan and 30 in Pakistan during the current year.
According to Emergency Operation Center (EOC) Balochistan, the polio virus has been detected in the Gul Afshan, a 60-month-old girl belonging to Shadizai Union Council of Quetta.
Her parents had refused to administer polio drops citing religious assumptions. “The chronic refusal was not recorded in tally sheet prepared by the polio teams,” spokesperson EOC Balochistan.
“The EOC is closely monitoring the situation and will take every possible step to improve the quality of the campaign,” spokesperson said.
It was the third polio case in Quetta while fifth in Balochistan during the year of 2015. The total number of polio cases have reached to 30 in Pakistan this year.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world which have not been able to eradicate the polio-virus while no case of polio virus was reported in Nigeria over a year.
In Balochistan, 84 per cent children are not immunised and are prone to various preventable and fatal diseases, data from the Emergency Operation Center (EOC) revealed.
Related Quetta anti-polio drive suspended due to lack of security
However, refusal on the part of some parents and attacks at polio workers and volunteers remain to be the main reasons behind the virus. The Polio campaign is always postponed and suspended owing to security reasons in Quetta.
The government had declared a polio emergency throughout the province to root out the crippling virus from the region.
But the anti-polio drive in the province has been marred by instances of terrorism, whereby polio health workers have been attacked and killed on numerous occasions.
