Fourth anti-polio drive of 2018 starts today

Campaign aims to cover 8.6 million children across Sindh

KARACHI: The Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for Polio in Sindh will launch its fourth anti-polio campaign of 2018 in all districts of Sindh today (April 9). The campaign will last till Friday, April 13.

The anti-polio drive will cover approximately 8.6 million children across the province, including around 2.4 million children in Karachi.

More than 56,000 frontline workers will take part in the campaign in Sindh, of whom around 12,000 will carry out the campaign in Karachi. As many as 5,000 police personnel have been deployed to provide security to polio workers in the provincial capital.

The total count of new polio cases in the country in 2017 was eight, of which two cases were reported in Karachi. The number was a historic low for the country and the province. In 2018, no cases of polio have so far been reported in Sindh, while only a single case has been reported in Pakistan - from Balochistan.



"We are in a good position to eradicate polio, the samples in Karachi have become negative because of repeated and intense campaigns," said EOC Sindh Coordinator Fayyaz Jatoi. "We have come a long way to achieve this historically low number of cases but more work needs to be done," he maintained.

According to Jatoi, the polio teams must continue their hard work and parents must show eagerness to vaccinate their children so that they are saved from the disease. No child should suffer from a vaccine-preventable disease and it is our collective responsibility to make sure all children are vaccinated and have a healthy future, he said, adding, "I appeal to the public, please vaccinate your children under five years of age during every campaign. It is necessary for children to develop immunity against polio."