Over 3m children vaccinated against polio in 12 districts

LAHORE: Polio teams continued to go door-to-door to vaccinate children as the ongoing special polio eradication drive entered second day on Tuesday.

One the first day of the campaign, more than three million children have been vaccinated in the 12 districts where campaign is being held.More than 120,000 children were vaccinated in Bhakkar on the first day of the campaign, while in Dera Ghazi Khan, Faisalabad and Lahore, more than 256,000, 353,000 and 438,000 children were vaccinated respectively.

In Layyah, Mianwali, Multan and Muzaffargarh, more than 139,000, 108,000, 326,000 and 336,000 children were vaccinated, in Rajanpur, Rawalpindi, RY Khan and Sheikhupura, 143,000, 216,000, 368,000, and 243,000 children were vaccinated respectively.

In his statement, head of the polio programme in Punjab Khizer Afzaal reiterated that campaign was being held to eradicate virus from Pakistan.

‘Campaign is being held in the affected districts. Some of the districts where virus was detected in the last six months have been made part of the campaign. These districts include Lahore, Rawalpindi and Faisalabad. Some other districts which are part of the campaign are vulnerable due to high-risk mobile population movement’, the EOC head pointed out.

‘The intermittent detection of virus in the environmental samples proves that Punjab is at the risk of imported virus circulation’, he added.The Sub-National Immunisation Days (SNIDs) commenced on Monday. The campaign is being held in 12 districts of Punjab including Lahore, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Bhakkar, DG Khan, Layyah, Mianwali, Multan, Muzaffargarh, Rajanpur, Rahim Yar Khan and Sheikhupura.

In Lahore, Rawalpindi and Faisalabad, the campaign will continue for seven days. While in other districts the campaign will last five days.Over 84,000 polio workers are participating in the drive to immunise 10.85 million children under the age of five against polio. This includes 7,064 area in-charges, 1,673 union council medical officers, over 71,000 mobile polio team members, 2,221 fixed team members and over 2,700 transit team members.

Punjab is aware that being country’s biggest province in terms of resources and population it is at the risk of imported virus recirculation. Therefore, it is taking concrete steps to improve quality of campaigns and coverage of high-risk mobile population at transit points.