Islamabad, Sep 21 (IANS): Pakistan reported three new cases of polio in the country's Balochistan, Sindh, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, bringing the total number of the disease-infected children to 21 since the beginning of this year, the health ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health confirmed that wild poliovirus type 1 was found in all three children who have been paralyzed by polio.

Expressing concern at the escalating number of children affected by the disease, the Prime Minister's Focal Person for Polio Eradication, Ayesha Raza Farooq, said that the government is determined to end the disease in the country, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Every new case is a child with a name, a face, and a life that is forever altered by the crippling impact of polio," she said, adding that the disease is silently spreading in some areas of Balochistan and Sindh where parents do not administer the polio vaccine to their kids.