KABUL: (MEP) – Officials in the ministry of public health of Afghanistan announced Tuesday that the first case of polio has been discovered in capital Kabul since 2001.
The officials further added that a three-year-old girl, belonging to the nomadic tribe (Kochi) was diagnosed as suffering from the infectious disease.
Dr. Kaneshka Bakhtash, spokesman for the public health ministry of Afghanistan told reporters that the girl was diagnosed as suffering from polio disease after she was taken to the hospital examination.
Dr. Bakhtash further added that the girl had probably contracted the illness across the border with Pakistan as she was moving freely between the two countries with her family.
He said the girl was partially paralyzed and has been taken to Pakistan for treatment purposes.
Kaneshka said the public health ministry has launched a vaccination campaign across the capital Kabul including the area where the girl was living.
According to the World Health Organization officials, all but one of 13 cases recorded in Afghanistan last year were contracted in Peshawar city of Pakistan.
Polio has been almost wiped out across the world; however Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria are the only countries in the world where polio remains endemic, despite the cases have declined significantly in Afghanistan in recent years.
Pakistan is the only country in the world that recorded an increase in cases in 2013, since the battle to eradicate polio is being undermined by the spread of the virus in Pakistan, where vaccinators are routinely killed by the Islamist Taliban.
