PESHAWAR: Health experts have feared the surfacing of back-to-back polio cases from Pakhtun-populated slum areas in Karachi during the last one month may jeopardise the progress made by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa towards the eradication of the crippling disease in 2015.

According to experts, Karachi has recorded 10 polio cases this year, seven of them Pakhtuns, who visit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa frequently. Most Pakhtuns living in Karachi belong to KP`s southern districts including Tank, Dera Ismail Khan, Lakki Marwat and Bannu and therefore, the risk of the transportation ofpoliovirusis there.

In the past, too, KP children were infected by the virus transported from Karachi by children.

The experts told Dawn that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, particularly Peshawar, which was considered to be a big hurdle to the global polio eradication efforts until June this year, was no longer a threat.

They said the province hadn`t seen polio case since October suggesting the quality of immunisation and accessibility to children had improved.

The experts said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which had reported68 casesin2014,had sofar only15cases thisyear.

They said of those cases, 10 were from Peshawar due to its proximity with Khyber Agency, which was leading Fata polio count of 15 with 12 cases in the current year.

According to the experts, Khyber Agency has been one of the major factors for the circulation of virus and infection of children in Peshawar. In the last one month, there have been four polio cases from Khyber Agency which pose serious threats to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, especially Peshawar.

Now along with Khyber Agency, Karachi has also put at risk the children of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

An expert said detection of seven cases in Karachi in the past one month had heightened risks in KP as well as Fata as some of the affected children belonged to Mehsud tribe and traveled to their native villages.

He said the cost of global polio eradication initiative was $1 a year and before the circulation and transmission of Karachi`s virus to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and other provinces, the focus should shift from Peshawar to Karachi.

The expert feared if international donors led by the UN failed to concentrate on children of marginalised communities in Karachi, the global anti-polio efforts were unlikely to pay off.

Another expert said not only KP but Fata also had made tangible progress due to the reduction in number of cases due to the immunisation of children, who hadn`t been given polio vaccines orally due to lack of security last year.

`With improvement of security, number of cases has been dropped steeply but Karachi situation with regard to pollo eradication in KP and Fata has posed challenge to the global polio eradication programme,` he said.

He said compared to 300 last year, only 50 pollo cases had been reported in the country in 2015 so far, including 15 each in KP and Fata, 12 in Sindh, seven in Balochistan and one in Punjab.

He said Fata and KP which had 85 per cent of the polio cases reported last year had registered a huge decrease in the disease`s incidence but Karachi could be a major factor in spreading virus as children from there traveled to native areas with parents frequently.