Anti-Polio Drive: Three-day campaign starts next week

HYDERABAD: The district administration and health authorities have set a target of immunising 310,599 children against polio during the three-day campaign that will begin from September 26. Up to 862 mobile teams, 100 fixed points and 36 transit points will take part in the campaign. The district focal person for polio, Dr Masood Jafri, told a meeting, chaired by deputy commissioner Mutassam Abbassi, on Monday that the health authorities could not complete the target during the campaign last month and 3,000 children could not be given the polio drops. He cited refusal by many parents as one of the two reasons. Dr Jafri had earlier told The Express Tribune that around 21,000 of the left-out children were not present at homes when the teams visited. He added that the parents of more than 2,000 children did not allow the teams to administer polio drops to their children.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 20^th, 2016.