High-risk zone: Anti-polio drive kicks off in Balochistan

Health workers and volunteers launch three-day polio immunisation campaign in six districts of Balochistan

QUETTA:

Health workers and volunteers launched on Monday a three-day polio immunisation campaign in six districts of Balochistan.

According to Dr Ishaq Panezai, deputy manager for the Extended Programme on Immunisation in Balochistan, as many as 857,838 children will be administered polio drops in Quetta, Pishin, Qila Abdullah, Zhob, Sherani and Lasbela districts of Balochistan.



The Quetta zone — comprising Quetta, Pishin and Qila Abdullah — falls in the then high-risk polio zone where six cases have surfaced so far.

As many as 1,831 teams have been formed to take part in the anti-polio campaign out of which 232 will be deployed at fixed sites, 91 at transit routes and 130 in union councils.



A large number of parents in the Quetta zone refused to allow health workers to administer polio vaccinations, mostly due to rumours that the vaccine was a Western plot to sterilise their children.

However, the United Nations Children’s Fund claimed that it had convinced a majority of those parents to reconsider their decision.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 14^th, 2014.