PESHAWAR: The National Institute of Health Islamabad on Sunday tested four children, belonging to North Waziristan Agency, positive for polio, officials said.

Pakistan had recorded 91 polio cases in the year 2013 including 65 cases from Federally Administered Tribal Areas, 10 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa nine from Sindh and seven from Punjab and became the highest infected country in the world ahead of Nigeria and Afghanistan, the other two polio-endemic countries.

“North Waziristan Agency, which topped the nationwide tally with 35 polio cases last year, has again started to show signs of the ban imposed by Taliban on vaccination in June 2012 in the face of four new cases from the area,” officials said.

According to them, the vaccinators in the militancy-riddled Khyber Agency didn’t reach the children from where 20 cases were reported last year.

Officials said that the virus was in circulation in the areas and non-vaccination of children for the last 19 months could prove disastrous for those un-immunised children, who stood exposed to the vaccine- preventable childhood disease.

“We fear explosive polio outbreak this year because 160,000 children remain unvaccinated due to the restrictions imposed by Taliban,” they said. Taliban prevented vaccinators from administration of oral polio vaccine arguing those were tactics of the US to spy on her enemies.

Taliban said that the US engaged Dr Shakil Afridi to trace Osama bin Laden in the garb of fake vaccination campaign, officials said.

According to them, the government is under tremendous global pressure to do away with the ailment as soon as possible but lack of security is hampering the plan to immunise the 900,000 target children in Fata.

“We reach about 70,000 children in every campaign but in the presence of un-immunised children, the virus will remain and can infect children till we administer OPV to all children repeatedly till they grow five year old,” officials said.

Three of the four new cases, recorded on Sunday, belong to Mir Ali and one to Miramshah in the militancy-hit North Waziristan. The victims didn’t receive vaccination.

Officials said that they were able to immunise children at the transit points established in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa border districts and in the camps but circulation of virus due to restriction by Taliban was a major hurdle to them. The government was looking for different channels to contact Taliban and convince them to allow vaccination in the areas controlled by them, officials said.

Efforts to get the ban lifted were not successful in the past because Taliban linked resumption of vaccination of children in Waziristan with cessation of the US drone attacks in Fata.

“The government is completely helpless to stop the US drone strikes due to which the prospects to see the ban lifted seem dim,” officials said.

According to them, the government has also been contemplating plans to engage local clerics in anti-polio campaign in Fata to ensure immunisation of the target children. “In the past religious leaders have played positive role in promoting vaccination but they suddenly stopped the campaign,” they said.

The National Research and Development Organisation, with the support of 7,000 ulema, worked on polio immunisation with the government and was able to reduce refusals against oral polio vaccine, officials said.

“After end of contract with the organisation, there is little likelihood that the local clerics will take up the job again,” they said.

“The ulema are now unwilling to help in polio immunisation. We need their services because they proved their worth in scaling up immunisation,” officials said.