LAHORE:Punjab is all set to roll out a special polio eradication campaign from tomorrow(Monday), targeting 13.9 million children.
The campaign which will be rolled out in 15 districts of the province is being labelled as a key step towards blocking local polio virus circulation. Districts include Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Attock, Chakwal, Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar, Multan, DG Khan, Muzaffargarh, Rajanpur, Rahim Yar Khan, Sheikhupura, Okara and Gujranwala.
In Lahore, Rawlapindi and Faisalabad, the campaign will last seven days while in rest of the districts, campaign will continue for five days only. In all districts, last two days of the campaign will be allocated to cover the leftover children.
Training of all teams have been wrapped up, experts deployed to monitor the campaign and vaccine as well as other logistics have been delivered to the districts. In order to implement a quality campaign, Punjab polio micro-plans have been reconstituted to encompass high risk migrant and mobile populations.
Polio teams have been directed to knock at every door to ensure vaccination of every child, including the newborn, especially in areas inhabited by the priority communities. As per instructions issued, even if teams’ previous record suggests that there is zero child in the house, the teams will need to knock at the door and double-check the availability of guest children.
Special focus has been put on improving the capacity of polio teams by imparting quality trainings. ‘All environmental samples which have tested positive in Punjab are linked to polio virus clusters active across the border in Afghanistan or other endemic and high-risk districts of Pakistan. This proves that Punjab is at the risk of polio virus importation. Therefore, Punjab is taking concrete steps to prevent the local circulation of virus by implementing immediate outbreak responses’, reiterated Khizer Afzaal, the head of the polio eradication programme and Emergency Operations Centre Coordinator in Punjab.
The EOC head underscored that Punjab had set up transit vaccination points to immunise cross-border and inter-provincial populations to prevent virus from entering Punjab, urging parents to cooperate with polio teams.
The Punjab polio eradication programme head acknowledged the hard work of ‘resilient and brave workers who are determined to protect every child in the province from the crippling virus and together we will soon achieve the goal of eradication in Pakistan’.
He underlined that multiple doses of polio drops offered the best protection against polio virus and every single child needed to be vaccinated to achieve population immunity and prevent virus circulation if ‘we are to eradicate polio from infected zones’.
It is worth mentioning that polio is a highly infectious disease caused by poliovirus mainly affecting children under the age of five years. It invades the nervous system and can cause paralysis or even death. While there is no cure for polio, vaccination is the most effective way to protect children from this crippling disease. Each time a child under the age of five is vaccinated, their protection against the virus is increased. Repeated immunisations have protected millions of children from polio, allowing almost all countries in the world to become polio-free, except for the two endemic countries of Pakistan and Afghanistan.