WHO survey evaluates anti-polio drive

RAWALPINDI:

The World Health Organisation's (WHO) Lot Quality Assessment Survey (LQS) has declared the outcomes of Rawalpindi's recently conducted anti-polio drive as satisfactory.

The campaign aimed to vaccinate over 1.057 million children in the district.

As part of the standard LQS protocol, WHO teams inspected 60 randomly selected houses to evaluate the campaign's success.

The campaign passes the LQS if no more than three unvaccinated children are found per cluster.

Encouragingly, environmental surveillance revealed a decline in the presence of the poliovirus.

While earlier samples had detected the virus in 12 areas across Rawalpindi city and cantonment, recent results confirmed its absence in three out of five environmental samples.

The remaining two results are pending.

Dr Asif Arbab Niazi, Chief Executive of the District Health Authority, praised the campaign's success and emphasised the need for sustained vigilance.

"We're committed to ensuring that the poliovirus does not re-emerge in environmental samples," he said.

Dr Niazi stressed the need to target families travelling to Rawalpindi from other cities, particularly from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), to ensure 100 percent vaccination coverage for their children.

The anti-polio drive is part of Pakistan's ongoing effort to eradicate the disease, with health authorities focusing on robust monitoring and effective vaccination campaigns to protect children from the crippling virus.