Afghan officials have launched a polio vaccination campaign after a young girl from Kabul was diagnosed with the disease – the capital's first case since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria are the only countries in the world where polio remains endemic. But the number of cases has declined significantly in Afghanistan in recent years.

Dr Kaneshka Baktash, spokesman for the Afghan public health ministry, said a three-year-old girl from east Kabul had contracted polio and was partially paralysed. He said the girl had been diagnosed in Pakistan, where she was brought by her family after falling ill.

Baktash said the ministry had launched a vaccination campaign across the capital and in the area where the girl was living.