Fresh vaccination campaign: 4.44m children to be vaccinated in high-risk districts

Officials urge parents to cooperate with vaccinators


Our Correspondent March 10, 2018
PHOTO: ONLINE/FILE

PESHAWAR: With the high polio transmission season just around the corner, the authorities involved in eradicating the virus have planned to carry out an extensive anti-polio drive in 17 high-risk districts of the province/

The high-risk districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) include Bannu, Charsadda, Chitral, Dera Ismail Khan, Dir Lower, Dir Upper, Hangu, Karak, Kohat, Lakki Marwat, Malakand, Mardan, Nowshera, Peshawar, Swabi, Swat and district Tank.

The high-transmission season usually begins in May when the poliovirus circulates easily.

The campaign is set to begin later this month and aims to vaccinate around 4.3million children against the crippling virus. It will not only target native population living in high-risk districts, but also camps of Afghan refugees.

The decision to launch the campaign was taken during a meeting held at the K-P Emergency Operations Center (EOC) with EOC coordinator Atif Rehman in the chair.

Rehman stressed upon ensuring that every child is covered by clearly identifying them since even one unvaccinated child could pose a serious threat to others.

He urged parents to support teams who were braving many challenges on the ground and to ensure that two drops of vaccine were administered to every child and that children were protected from the lifelong disability.

According to the officials, around 16,002 teams including 13,953 mobile, 1,079 fixed, 735 transit and 235 roaming teams will be vaccinating children against the poliovirus. Strict security measures have been taken to protect teams with more than 26,000 police officers deployed to protect the teams.

During the last vaccination campaign in the provincial capital, a teenaged girl helping her sister, a health worker, was allegedly abducted for a few hours in the Sheikhan area of Peshawar, before being found unconscious in a nearby graveyard a few hours later.

It prompted a police scramble and manhunt in the area. Officials later denied that the girl had been subjected to sexual assault.

Around eight poliovirus cases were reported in 2017 as compared to 20 cases in 2016 and 306 in 2014.One poliovirus case was reported in K-P where cases have dropped sharply due to excessive campaigns as compared to eight cases in 2016 and 68 in 2014.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 10th, 2018.

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