A 17-month-old girl from Balochistan’s Qilla Abdullah has contracted the crippling disease – polio, taking the tally of the total number of infected cases in the province to 15 during 2020.
The Balochistan Health Department collected samples of the girl in June whose family resides in the Pak-Afghan bordering town of Chaman.
The health department sources claimed that the family refused to administer anti-polio drops to the young child which resulted in crippling her for life.
The anti-polio drives across the country are on a standstill since March in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. However, last week, the federal government decided to launch a special anti-polio immunisation campaign after the country recorded 60 cases of the disease during the current year.
The National Emergency Operation Centre (NEOC) is all set to commence nationwide anti-polio campaign from Monday in which polio workers will administer anti-polio drops to children in specific Union Councils across the country.
It is pertinent to mention here that Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa and Microsoft Founder and Co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Bill Gates discussed the anti-polio drive in Pakistan during a telephonic conversation on June 11, according to the Inter-Services Public Relations director general.
(With additional input from DNA)
Published in The Express Tribune, July 19th, 2020.
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