Kabul has recorded its first polio case since 2001, raising alarm in the city and compelling the Afghan Ministry of Health (MoH) to launch a three-day polio vaccination campaign.
A three-year-old girl, Sakina, was diagnosed after she complained that she could not stand on her feet.
A daughter of a taxi driver from a nomad tribe, Sakina was taken to Pakistan for treatment, the Ministry of Health said on Tuesday.
Health workers rushed to the neighbourhood where Sakina lived to see if other children were affected by the virus immediately upon her diagnosis. But no other cases were found, according to Ministry spokesperson Kanishka Turkistani.
Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria are the only three countries in the world where polio has yet to be fully eradicated.
There were 80 polio cases in Afghanistan in 2011, 37 in 2012 and just 14 in 2013. Sakina is the second case diagnosed in Afghanistan this year, added Mr. Turkistani.
Most cases of polio in Afghanistan are said to occur on the Afghan-Pakistani border in the country's eastern provinces.