Nazir said security arrangements had been made for polio vaccination teams in sensitive areas. PHOTO: EXPRESS/SHAFIQ MALIK
Punjab would become polio-free in 2014, leading to a healthier Pakistan, Parliamentary Secretary on Health Khawaja Imran Nazir said on Monday. He was administering polio drops to children at Mayo Hospital’s paediatric ward to inaugurate a three-day anti-polio campaign.
Nazir said security arrangements had been made for polio vaccination teams in sensitive areas. He said the Health Department had constituted around 39,000 teams to administer polio drops to 17 million children in 36 districts. In Lahore, the target was 1.5 million children for which 3,300 teams had been constituted. Director General Zahid Pervaiz said that children who were not able to get vaccinated during the campaign could get vaccinations on January 23. He said that vaccination teams were being strictly monitored, and special assignments had been given to Health Department officers and representatives of the WHO, the UNICEF and other international partners.
Nazir said Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s mission was to ‘make Punjab healthy’, and that hospitals were being upgraded with latest health facilities for this purpose. Medical education was also being improved, he added. He said the health budget had been increased to Rs100 billion for achieving these goals.
EPI Director Health Munir Ahmad and MS Dr Abdul Majeed Chaurdhary, doctors were also present.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 21st, 2014.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ