Doctors reported a new poliovirus case in Nangarhar province in the east of the country on Sunday, June 18, which makes it the fifth polio case in the province so far this year.
Nek Mohammad, head of the polio vaccination campaign in the country, said that the case was reported with a child in Door Baba district in Nangarhar.
On June 4, the fourth case of poliovirus was reported in the province. The victim is four-year-old Mohammad, from the Samarkhel area in the Behsood district of the province.
Afghanistan registered the first positive case of polio in the Bati Kot of Nangarhar earlier this year.
The second case was also registered in Bati Kot, the third case was recorded in Nazian, and now the fourth case in the Beshood district of the province.
The third case of the poliovirus was reported on May 25. Doctors said that a 2.5-year-old child has tested positive for poliovirus in Nazian district in Nangarhar.
Two other cases of the virus were also reported in Nangarhar this month in the Bati Kot and Kot districts of Nangarhar.
Local residents in Bati Kot district in Nangarhar said in May that a five-year-old child died of poliovirus in their village this month. But doctors have not officially confirmed the matter.
According to the Ministry of Public Health, two polio patients were confirmed in 2022, four in 2021, and 56 in 2020.
As of March 2023, over 500,000 people were served in health facilities and hospitals supported by WHO in Afghanistan.
