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Polio resurfaces in Pakistan

Infection Control Monitor, July 17, 2008

An eight-month-old Pakistani girl has tested positive for type 1 polio, the most dangerous and contagious strain, a World Health Organization (WHO) official confirmed on June 17.

The girl lives in an area where militants campaigned against vaccination for the disease, reported the Associated Press. The girl is from a village in the Swat Valley where militants had “beaten up” members of the vaccination teams, a WHO official said.

The last confirmed case of polio in Swat had been in 2003. Threats to healthcare workers and fighting between government security forces and militants have disrupted vaccinations in about half of the Swat Valley since September 2007, he said. Polio has been eliminated in all but about a dozen countries following a global vaccination campaign, according to WHO. The disease remains endemic in Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan.

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