Islamabad - The National Institute of Health, Islamabad, confirmed six new polio cases on Saturday.
The confirmation has surged the total count of polio to 276 this year. The cases have been surfaced from Khyber Agency (2), South Waziristan (1), FR Bannu (1), Nowshera (1) and Killa Abdullah (1).
So far out of total cases 169 have been reporter from Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA), 60 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 27 from Sindh, 3 from Punjab, and 17 from Balochistan. In new cases, the children who contracted the virus in FATA were not vaccinated against the disease.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister’s Focal Peron on Polio, Ayesha Raza Farooq, chaired a review meeting to analyse the level of preparedness of forthcoming anti-polio national immunisation days (NIDs).
More than 34 million children less than 5 years of age will be targeted in the NIDs. “The government has a firm resolve to defeat poliovirus transmission in the country through optimum utilisation of this low transmission season,” said Ayesha Raza Farooq while reviewing the data received from the provinces.
The status of districts polio eradication committees (DPEC) meetings, prerequisite indicators for complete micro-planning, eligible team constitutions and all other aspects were reviewed and on the spot actions were directed by the focal person.
Earlier Ayesha also called chief secretaries and health secretaries of provinces to take all measures to run smooth polio campaigns in their respective provinces.