ISLAMABAD: The National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) for Polio Eradication on Thursday confirmed that five more polio cases had been detected from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province.

Two cases had been found in Bannu, two from Torkhar and one from North Waziristan, Prime Minister’s Focal Person on Polio Babar Bin Atta said in a statement.

He said that a fake drama was created against polio vaccine in Peshawar and advised the parents to avoid considering any such propaganda against polio vaccine and vaccinate their children to protect them from polio virus.

He said that due to this fake drama, some parents of far-flung areas were reluctant to vaccinate their children. He urged polio workers and provincial health officials to pay special focus on far-flung areas of KP and asked the province to utilize all resources to eradicate polio.

He said despite the significant achievements of the programme, the cunning polio-virus was still surviving and find a way for its survival, therefore special immunization campaign was planned in all core reservoirs to kill the wild polio virus forever.

He said that the government was committed and striving to hit the virus hard through this special immunization campaign. This was top priority to focus on reaching still missed children in core reservoir through continued improvement of operations and capacitating frontline polio workers to reach and protect every missed child with the vital polio vaccine.

He stressed that parents should protect their children from virus through repeated vaccinations as each time drops were offered by dedicated polio workers during the campaign.

He said polio was a highly infectious disease caused by polio virus mainly affecting children under the age of five. It invades the nervous system and can cause paralysis or even death.

He added while there is no cure for polio, vaccination is the most effective way to protect children from this crippling disease. Each time a child under the age of five is vaccinated, their protection against the virus is increased.

He said that repeated immunizations have protected millions of children from polio, allowing almost all countries in the world to become polio free.