Countrywide anti-polio drive begins

Islamabad: Three-day nationwide anti-polio campaign kicked-off throughout the country on Monday. National Coordinator Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme Rana Muhammad Safdar said that 38 million children below the age of five years will be administered anti-polio drops during the campaign, a radio reported.

He said that 19.15 million children will be vaccinated in Punjab, 8.7 million in Sindh, 5.68 million in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 2.46 million in Balochistan, 1.03 million in FATA, 0.74 million in AJK, 0.237 million in Gilgit-Baltistan and 0.313 million children in Islamabad.

He said that around 42.5 million doses of the vaccine will be utilised during the campaign. He said that the campaign in Karachi is strategically planned from 22nd to 28th of this month and 260,000 health workers will visit door to door to administer polio drops across the country during the campaign.

The national coordinator said that last year eight polio cases were reported. He said presently there are two hot polio reservoirs in the country located at Karachi and Qilla Abdullah near Quetta and we are fully focused on these sites.

This is the first campaign of the year and similar nationwide campaigns will also be launched during the next four months to ensure complete eradication of the polio virus from the country, he added.