Focus on ‘repeat offenders’ in latest polio drive

The nine-day-long drive will continue until February 27 in Rawalpindi

RAWALPINDI: Children up to 10-years-of-age will be administered polio drops in 16 union councils of the Rawalpindi Municipal Corporation (RMC) and the Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) areas from February 19.

The nine-day-long drive will continue until February 27.

Anti-Polio Drive In-Charge Chaudhry Muhammad Hussain said that they used to limit the polio drive to children of five-years-of-age.

But this time, the government has decided to widen the net it casts by including children up to 10-years-of-age and adopt a zero-tolerance policy to administer polio vaccinations.

He added that environmental samples have tested positive for the polio virus consecutively for the past eight months in the city, giving rise to an alarm.

During the drive, Hussain said that polio teams will administer the vaccine to children in 10 union councils of the city from 3 to 11, and UC 37, while six wards of the cantonments will also be targeted, including Ward No 3, 9 and 10.

These areas, located along the Nullah Leh, have been declared as high-risk areas.

Meanwhile, sources in the district health department have said that Rawalpindi is free of the poliovirus — pointing to the absence of any child being infected with the polio virus in the city for years.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 19^th, 2019.