Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal kicks off anti-polio campaign
in Quetta. PHOTO: EXPRESS
A target of vaccinating more than 2.4 million children under the age of 5 has been set and 10,554 teams have been formed. They include 8,949 mobile teams, 955 fixed sites and 591 transit points.
Speaking to the media at the campaign’s inauguration, the Quetta Deputy Commissioner said polio had become a challenge and a serious problem which we all needed to defeat collectively.
He also said the disease had been eliminated throughout the world except Pakistan and Afghanistan and that we all needed to unite to eliminate the menace. He also urged parents to cooperate in the polio eradication effort and have their children vaccinated against the disease so that their country and beloved city of Quetta could eliminate it.
For his part, District Health Officer Meer Saeed Mirwani expressed his determination to make the province-wide campaign successful. He said a well-coordinated security plan had also been prepared in conjunction with the Quetta Deputy Commissioner, adding that five-day campaigns would be held in Quetta, Pishin and Fort Abdullah while the campaign would last three days in other districts.
Two polio cases have already been reported in Balochistan this year whereas only one case had emerged in all of 2019.
Aurangzeb Badini was accompanied by Saeed Mirwani and other officers as he administered polio drops to the children.
Meanwhile, kicking off the anti-polio drive, Balochistan Chief Minister (CM) Jam Kamal Khan Alyani has termed anti-polio campaigns essential in the war against polio and vowed to defeat the crippling virus and turn Balochistan into a polio-free region.
“The Balochistan government and the provincial Health Department, along with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Emergency Operation Centre (EOC), will conduct the anti-polio drive in order to save the future of Balochistan”, the CM said in a conversation with reporters at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat on Monday.
Jam Kamal also administered polio drops to children under the age of five and urged civil society, parents and religious scholars to join the government in eliminating the virus from the province.
The chief minister also called polio eradication a national mission for which we all had to play a role.
He also directed authorities to initiate an awareness campaign on polio.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 18th, 2020.
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