Anti-polio drive begins in tribal region

The Inactivated Polio Vaccine (IPV) and Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) campaign started on Sunday in tribal Khyber Agency, Mohamnd Agency and Frontier Region Peshawar under the supervision of all agencies surgeons, political administrations and other security agencies.
Sharing details regarding the campaign, Director Health Services, FATA Dr Jawad Habib Khan said a total of 119,248 children aging between 0 to 23 months will be vaccinated during the campaign, out of which 14,710 infants aging between 0 to 04 months will only be vaccinated with OPV while 104,538 children between age of 4 months to 23 months will be vaccinated with both IPV and OPV.
A total of 451 teams comprised on 371 outreach, 78 fixed and 02 mobile teams have been specialized for the purpose, he added.
The health official maintained that IPV is administered in combination with OPV, protects a child from polio virus as well as increases the immunity level of children for prolonged period of time aids stopping of transmission of polio virus.
Dr Jawad said IPV and OPV drive was the main factor that reduced the polio cases in tribal belt to zero for the last 20 months and hoped that this year phase wise IPV, OPV campaign will not only secure children of FATA in upcoming high transmission season but will also held FATA complete two years of maintaining zero polio status.
It is to be mentioned here that last polio case was reported in on July 27th ,2016 from South Waziristan and since that no polio case has been filed in 2017 and so far 2018. Meanwhile, the official of Khyber Pakhtunkwha health department said the campaign is being launched to administer inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) and oral polio vaccine (OPV) in district Peshawar, which will be continued till April 30.
They said that over 0.2million children from four months to 23 months old age would be vaccinated polio drops during the week-long campaign in the city. He added that a comprehensive strategy has been chalked out to smooth carrying out the drive. A senior official of the health department strongly rejected the negative propaganda about the polio vaccine, calling it a much safer. He viewed the India along with other countries, which had suffered from this polio, eliminated the disease from administrating same vaccine.
The official informed that the government has decided to start coordinated polio campaigns with Afghanistan to help stop virus circulation in the region which was of the same origin.
He said that Pakistan and Afghanistan were the same epidemiological block and the decision to conduct same day campaigns with Afghanistan will not minimize chances of missed children who were on the move but will also address the issue of virus transmission in the region.