Anti-polio drive kicks off in 95 districts of country

30 per cent of targeted children vaccinated on first day of campaign

ISLAMABAD: The first anti-polio campaign of the current low transmission started on Monday in all planned 95 districts/agencies of the country wherein 30 per cent of the total targeted children were vaccinated against the disease on the first day of the campaign.

The first sub-national (SNID) campaign of the current low transmission started in all planned districts/agencies of the country except district Lahore which was delayed due to strike of paramedic staff. Three districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhawa including Chiral, Dir Lower & Dir Upper will start their campaign from November 6 in sync with Afghanistan in response to a recent Nangarhar case.

Total of 95 districts/towns/agencies have been included in the current campaign including 10 districts in Punjab, 36 districts/towns in Sindh, 16 districts in KP, 19 districts in Balochistan, 13 agencies/FRs in FATA and Islamabad.

The programme is targeting a total of 21.6 million children under the age of five (7.27m in Punjab, 7.175m in Sindh, 4m in K-P, 1.8m in Balochistan, 1.033 m in FATA and 0.312m children in Islamabad. In the core reservoir areas covered through Community Based Vaccination (CBV) approach, it will be a 5 days campaign and 2 days catch-up, while in the mobile team areas, there will be a 3-day campaign and 1-2 day catch-up.

A total of 145,000 personnel are involved in the campaign to achieve the set targets across Pakistan including 14,429 area incharges, 4,317 UC medical officers, 109,626 mobile, 5,264 fixed and 7,422 transit team members.

The current polio epidemiology in the country is best ever observed, officials believe. The cases have declined from 306 in 2014 to 54 in 2015 and only 20 in 2016. They added that the momentum was being maintained in 2017 where the current case count is at five.

The National Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) has urged entire team to strive hard to achieve the set targets.

The National Task Force under the prime minister as well as the national and provincial political and religious leadership has also requested all sectors especially the parents to fully facilitate our frontline heroes (Sehat Muhafiz) in this noble cause.