Nairobi, Kenya ? Kenya has reported its first new polio case in decades, the United Nations said Tuesday, with the infection of a 3-year-old Somali refugee marking a new setback in the global effort to eradicate the crippling disease.

The first documented polio infection in 22 years in Kenya makes the East African nation the 26th country to have been re-infected since a 2003 vaccine boycott by hard-line Nigerian Islamic clerics claiming the inoculations were part of a U.S.-led plot to render Muslims infertile.

In Geneva, World Health Organization spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said the Somali girl found infected in Kenya had a polio strain from nearby Somalia, which has been re-infected with the virus since 2005 after it being polio-free for three years.

Ethiopia, which also borders on Kenya, was re-infected with the polio virus in 2004 and currently is reporting 37 cases, Chaib said.