Islamabad: A 22-months-old girl was confirmed to be the latest victim of the crippling polio virus in city’s UC-8 of Gadap Town in Pakistan’s Karachi, surging the toll of affected children to 11 in Karachi this year, Dunya News reported yesterday. It is the third case from the same union council and fifth from Gadap Town.
After emergence of five 13 polio cases on Tuesday, the tally has reached 158. Out of which, 112 in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), 29 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 12 Sindh, three Balochistan and two new cases have surfaced in Punjab this year.
Pakistan is in the spotlight as the only country with endemic polio that saw cases rise last year. Its caseload rose to 93 from 58 in 2012, accounting for more than a fifth of the 417 cases globally in 2013. Though a polio immunisation campaign started in 1974, its eradication officially started only in 1993. About sixty rounds of vaccination were carried out in the country before 2007, and the infection persists.
Floods destroy 2,000 schools
Islamabad: Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said that 2,000 schools were destroyed across Punjab, worst-hit province in 2014’s spell of heavy rains and floods that have left 318 people dead and more than 500 injured.
Punjab has been the worst-hit province due to rains and floods, where more than 1.7 million of the population is affected. According to the NDMA, nearly 17,000 houses have been fully destroyed. Over 1,900 schools across the province were also damaged and remained non-operational. 250 schools were affected in Punjab’s Jhang district alone.
NDMA has initiated an assessment drive to calculate damages in the districts of Mandi Bahauddin, Hafizabad, Chiniot, Jhang and Multan.
Finance Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar said that Pakistan had received assistance for rehabilitation of flood victims from other countries and international agencies but the government wants to utilize it only after complete scrutiny of total damages.
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