ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The health authorities on Monday launched a countrywide four-day anti-polio campaign in a bid to vaccinate around 36.6 million children against the crippling disease.
According to an official of Ministry for Health Services, 41 million doses of polio vaccines would be used during the campaign.
The new approach of Continuous Community Protected Vaccination (CCPV) is being used in the high risk areas of Peshawar, Bannu, Tank, North Waziristan, Khyber, Killa Abdullah, Pishin, Quetta and areas of Karachi including Landhi, Gadap, Orangi, Baldia, site area and Gulshan.
CCPV approach is aimed to decrease the number of children missed in the previous anti-polio campaigns and areas that were inaccessible earlier would be approached now.
According to officials, the approach is bearing fruitful results in high-risk areas as the number of missed children has decreased considerably. Thousands of teams have been formed for the drive against the disease, which the officials hope to eliminate this year.
In Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 2.5 million children will be administered polio drops. A spokesman of polio emergency centre said that over two million children in Balochistan while more than 550,000 children would be covered in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
All arrangements have been finalised to immunise the children in the provinces. Over six thousand mobile teams have been formed while tough security arrangements have been made to avoid any untoward incident.
Meanwhile, health officials have requested parents to cooperate with polio teams for the safe future of their children.
According to a UNICEF health official, there is 85 percent reduction in recorded polio cases in 2015 and with this kind of progress Pakistan can be declared a non-epidemic country for poliovirus this year.
The year 2014 was a difficult year for the health authorities as Pakistan recorded 305 cases of polio, as the campaign met resistance from militants who attacked immunisation teams and polio workers were stopped from administering anti-polio drops in some areas.
An official of Polio Emergency Operation Centre told media recently that in 2015, only 16,000 children were missed in the country, which is highly commendable when data is compared with figures in 2014.
Around 292,000 children from Khyber Agency, North Waziristan and South Waziristan agencies missed immunisation in 2014 due to inaccessibility to these areas.
The health workers will be visiting each and every part of cities and far off places in rural areas in an effort to make the campaign successful.
Special counters have been established at public parks, railway stations, bus and wagon stands, airports and transit points to administer anti-polio drops to children to ensure that no one is left without the vaccine.
Source: APP
