Millions vaccinated in last phase of year

Punjab on Sunday wrapped up its last national polio immunisation drive of the year after vaccinating millions of children.

The campaign was wrapped up in Lahore, Rawalpindi and Faisalabad. It had already been concluded in 33 smaller districts having limited targets.

The Punjab polio eradication programme had confirmed earlier that more than 22.8 million children had been vaccinated in the province in the first five days of the campaign. More than two million children had been vaccinated during the period in Lahore, 1.4 million in Faisalabad, one million in Multan and 900,000 in Rawalpindi.

More than 200,000 frontline polio workers participated in the campaign that continued for seven days in the populous districts and five days in smaller districts.

Read Week-long anti-polio drive starts today

According to an official statement, nine environmental samples from Punjab have tested positive for poliovirus so far, of which six were from Lahore and three from Rawalpindi.

The genomic sampling of the virus confirms linkage of eight samples with a virus cluster circulating in Afghanistan. Punjab Emergency Operations Centre Coordinator Khizer Afzaal said data obtained from the campaign would be analysed to identify gaps.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 4^th, 2023.