Five news polio cases surfaced across the country on Tuesday, taking the tally of polio patients reported this year to 253.
The National Instituted of Health (NIH) said that the new cases were reported from Karachi in Sindh, Bannu in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), South Waziristan and Khyber Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Qilla Abdullah in Balochistan.
This year so far, 22 polio cases have been reported from Karachi, 161 from FATA and 49 from KP.
Most of the cases have been reported in areas where children were deprived of anti-polio vaccines due to militancy or where parents avoided getting their children vaccinated due to religious influences.
Earlier, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned Pakistan that more restrictions would be placed on Pakistanis travelling abroad if Pakistan failed to control the spread of polio virus.
WHO has warned that if Pakistan did not adopt immediate appropriate measures to curb the spread of polio, Pakistani passengers would be screened at international airports.
Pakistanis travelling abroad already have to submit a polio-vaccination certificate – a condition imposed earlier this year following a surge of polio cases in the country.
