First polio case in Pakistan’s Waziristan

ISLAMABAD: A child has contracted polio for the first time in Pakistan’s militant-infested tribal belt since the Taliban banned vaccinations a year ago, a UN official said yesterday.

“The new case has been detected in North Waziristan where we had been denied access in June last year,” the World Health Organisation’s senior coordinator for polio eradication in Pakistan, Elias Durry, told AFP.

Tribesmen in North Waziristan, Pakistan’s most notorious stronghold of Taliban and al- Qaeda linked militants, endorsed the Taliban ban and stopped authorities from vaccinating children under a nationwide campaign. — AFP