13.2m children targeted in polio drive

As many as 90,000 polio workers participating in three-day campaign

ISLAMABAD: A three-day anti-polio campaign targeting over 13.2 million in the country kicked off on Monday.

As per the Prime Minister Polio Cell, the aim of the ongoing campaign is to weaken the spread of polio virus — including from the 10 cities where the endemic virus was reported during last month.

According to results shared by the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC), the presence of polio virus was confirmed in sewage samples collected from Faisalabad, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Karachi, Sukkur, Qilla Abdullah, Quetta, DI Khan, Peshawar, and South Waziristan.



As many as 90,000 polio workers are participating in the nationwide drive, said National Emergency Operations Centre for Polio Eradication Coordinator Dr Rana Muhammad Safdar.

He added that around 60 experts have been deployed in sensitive cities. The coordinator urged parents to administer their children with polio drops.

Dr Rana said: “Saving children from life-long paralysis is our collective responsibility, and all parents must not keep their children deprived of the polio drops”.

During the campaign, the children will be given two types of vaccines, inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) and oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV).