KARACHI: Another case of polio virus emerged from the financial hub of the country on Thursday, taking the tally of number of cases from Sindh to three.

According to the Spokesman Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) for polio eradication and immunisation, the affected child Abdul Nasir is six months old and belongs to Gulshan-e-Iqbal’s UC-12.

According to the father and grandmother, the child has never been administered polio drops and whenever teams came to give polio drops, the family concealed the child’s presence.

According to the spokesman, Pakistan has 17 cases of polio registered this year and it is feared the number will rise.

This year two polio cases from Karachi have been reported so far, while third one was from Larkana.

Along with Afghanistan and Nigeria, Pakistan is one of the only three countries where complete polio eradication has not yet been achieved.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), polio has been all but wiped out across the world following a sustained vaccination campaign, with only 22 cases reported in 2017 against more than 350,000 in 1988. There is no known cure but the disease can be prevented if children are given multiple treatments with the polio vaccine, the WHO says.