ISLAMABAD - Surfacing of five new polio cases in a single day took the number of cases in 2013 to 91 Saturday.
All the wild type-1 cases have surfaced from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) that have reported the highest number of cases as around 261000 children from the North and South Waziristan agencies have been unvaccinated since the Taliban banned vaccinations in the area in June 2012 due to drone strikes.
A polio case is counted from the day when the stool samples were collected. And the aforementioned cases were reported during the third week of December 2013 but have been confirmed by the laboratory on Saturday. As laboratory takes almost 3-4 weeks to confirm the presence of poliovirus in the stool samples of a child, the first case of 2014 will be reported somewhere during the first week of February.
Officials at National Institute of Health (NIH) say more cases from the last year coming and the number of 2013 may reach to nearly 100.
All five children who contracted the virus were not immunised due to inaccessibility issue in FATA. Four children are from different areas of North Waziristan Agency including Adil s/o Gul Nawaz, 15 months old male child and resident of area Dray Nashtar, village Sara Melowa, tehsil Razmak; Zakim Ullah s/o Sharoof, an 18 months old male child and resident of area Toortangai, village Pangai Kala, tehsil Miranshah; Amina d/o Hayat Ullah, an 18 months old female child who is a resident of area Land, village Boya, tehsil Miran Shah; Muntazir s/o Molvi Ataullah, 24 months old male child and a resident of area Shnakhura, village Khuziai Mandau, tehsil Miranshah.
The fifth child Shamsullah s/o Adot Khan, a 15 months old male child, is a resident of area Milward, village Mada Khel Krapa, tehsil Bara, Khyber Agency.
Out of total 91 cases 7 were reported from Punjab, 9 from Sindh, 10 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 65 from FATA.