ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: A total of 28 polio cases have been detected across Pakistan so far in 2015 with the latest such case being reported in Peshawar.
The new polio case was found on Friday in Muhammad Yasir, a six-month old child from Peshawar’s Urmarh Bala area.
In 2015, 13 polio cases have so far been reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa out of which eight were registered in Peshawar only.
However, the total number of polio cases registered throughout the country is 28.
Earlier on Friday, the Minister of State for National Health Services Saira Afzal Tarar said that the federal government was determined to eradicate polio by 2016 at all costs.
In her address at a news briefing in Quetta, the minister said that the government was making successful efforts to eradicate polio from the country and due to measures significant decrease had been witnessed in polio cases.
Last year, 306 polio cases were reported across Pakistan which remains one of only three countries in the world where polio remains endemic.
The official sources said that the decline in polio cases has occurred due to the anti-polio campaigns which proved successful after the military operation in volatile tribal areas allowed vaccinators to reach areas previously off-limits because of militant attacks.
