The number of polio cases across the country has touched 13 after a three-year-old child was tested positive for the virus in Mir Ali tribal district on Wednesday.
The leading number of cases in 2019 has been reported in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) – seven, including three that surfaced in the tribal districts.
There have been three cases in Punjab, all of them in Lahore.
On Tuesday, a minor girl in Larkana was diagnosed with polio, becoming the second victim of the crippling disease in Sindh.
The other polio case in Sindh this year was reported in Karachi, where a three-year-old girl in Lyari Town tested positive for the disease.
Earlier this year, traces of the poliovirus were found in the sewage water of the country’s major cities including Karachi, Peshawar, Bannu, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Qilla Abdullah, Pishin and Quetta.
Twelve cases were reported in the country last year, six in the tribal districts, three in Balochistan, two in KP, and one in Sindh.
A few months ago, Pakistan’s race against polio was almost at the finish line, as officials believed the crippling virus was on the verge of eradication.
But the entire exercise suddenly suffered a major setback last month after a slew of violence affected campaigns against the poliovirus across the country.
