KARACHI: Pakistan has confirmed a new poliovirus case from the country’s northwestern Torghar district, the National Health Institute (NIH) confirmed on Tuesday, raising the total tally of cases this year to 30.
The latest polio infection was detected in a 12-month-old boy from Union Council Ghari in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province’s Torghar district, the NIH said. The makes it the 19th polio case from KP this year while nine infections have been reported from Sindh and one each from the eastern Punjab and northern Gilgit-Baltistan territories.
“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad, has confirmed a new case of wild poliovirus (WPV1) in District Torghar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” the statement said.
“This is the second case from District Torghar this year.”
The development takes place a day after Pakistan launched the second phase of a nationwide polio immunization campaign until Oct. 23, aiming to vaccinate more than a million children in KP, where the highest number of cases have been reported this year.
