Nationwide anti-polio drive begins today

A nationwide door-to-door anti-polio campaign would begin Monday (today) to administer vaccine drops to tens of millions of children under the age of five years to protect them from the crippling disease, officials said on Sunday.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday inaugurated the September 9-15 campaign in 115 districts of the country, covering 30 million children. Shehbaz launched the campaign by administering polio drops to children at the inauguration ceremony.

During the campaign, 286,000 polio workers will visit door-to-door to administer polio drops to the children. Shehbaz urged parents to ensure that their children under-5 received the polio vaccine to protect them from lifelong disability.

"We are grateful to the partners and friendly international organisations cooperating with the government in the fight against polio," he said, expressing his optimism that the government, in collaboration with provinces, would succeed in eradicating polio.

The initiative aims to administer polio drops to millions of children to curb the spread of the disease. It comes just days after Islamabad reported its first poliovirus case in 16 years, bringing the total number of cases in Pakistan this year to 17.

In preparation for the major immunisation drive, several district administrations have already begun local polio vaccination efforts. These drives set the stage for a larger campaign organised by the health department.

In Punjab, the week-long campaign will focus on vaccinating 13.9 million children in key districts such as Lahore, Rawalpindi, and Faisalabad. In Sindh, the drive will cover 9.4 million children across 30 districts, including Hyderabad.

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) has constituted over 35,000 polio teams to carry out door-to-door vaccinations, ensuring every child under-5 receives the polio drops. In Balochistan, more than 11,000 teams have been formed for the vaccination effort. Last week, Islamabad reported its first case of poliovirus in 16 years – an eight-year-old boy from Union Council Rural 4, near Sangjani Toll Plaza, according to the Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio at the National Institute of Health (NIH).

In addition to the confirmed wild poliovirus (WPV1) cases, the virus has been detected in environmental samples from 64 districts across all four provinces, indicating the presence of WPV1 in these areas. (WITH INPUT FROM APP)