Banishing disease: Polio drive to kick off in K-P from Dec 10

Over 5.8m children to get polio vaccine in December round of anti-polio drive

PESHAWAR: A-three-day polio drive kicks off in K-P from December 10 in all districts in which it is estimated that over five million children will be administered the polio vaccine.

This was disclosed in a preparatory meeting held on  Friday at Emergency Operations Center Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (EOC) with Coordinator EOC Abid Khan Wazir in the chair.

EPI K-P Director Dr Akram Shah, WHO leader Dr Abdi Nasir, UNICEF Team Leader Dr Johar, N-Stop Team Leader Dr Ijaz Ali Shah, BMGF Technical Focal Person Dr Imtiaz Ali Shah and other relevant staff were also present on the occasion.



The meeting was informed that a total of 5.88 million children will be administered polio drops in the upcoming campaign for which 22,135 teams have been constituted out of which 19,334 are mobile, 1,623 are fixed and 996 are transit.

More than 30,000 law enforcing personnel are to be deployed at various plugging points to ensure security to the polio teams.

Speaking on the occasion, Abid Wazir directed the staff to ensure that every child was vaccinated against the crippling disease saying that teams are missing children which is why virus is still circulating in the environment.

He also directed for providing safe environment to the teams by ensuring extra security measures adding that strict monitoring system should also be in place to ensure quality campaign.



Abid Wazir said that polio is becoming a stigma for the nation and it is a national emergency that needs to be taken seriously and addressed on a war footing.

He said that polio eradication is the government’s programme and not of any foreign NGOs as perceived by many. Some people as partners were only providing technical support and added that every segment of society will have to play their role in clearing misconceptions.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 8^th, 2018.