Bangladesh confirms first polio case in six years

[Angel]

Bangladesh confirmed yesterday the country's first case of polio in nearly six years, prompting plans to resume mass vaccinations against the crippling disease next month.


Laboratory tests showed a nine-year-old girl in the eastern Chandpur district has polio, health officials said. A team of World Health Organization experts met with Health and Family Welfare Minister Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain and promised to help tackle the virus. "We are worried," said Arun Thapa, the WHO's regional adviser for polio in Southeast Asia who investigated the case.

"The virus has had time to spread." Health workers have vaccinated 215 young children in the girl's village as a precaution, local health official Abdul Mannan said. Mannan said the girl came in contact with a family who had recently visited India's Uttar Pradesh state, where polio is endemic.