PESHAWAR: Director Health Services FATA Dr Pervaiz Kamal has said that local elders and influencers are being involved in polio eradication initiative (PEI) in the tribal areas in order to overcome the challenges confronting the public health intervention in the country.
He made this statement while inaugurating three days anti-polio drive in the federally administered tribal area (FATA) and frontier regions (FRs) here Wednesday at FATA Secretariat. Representatives of UNICEF, WHO and EPI staff were also present on the occasion.
The anti-polio campaign starting from Dec 12 to 14 would be conducted in the entire FATA with the exception of North Waziristan agency, parts of South Waziristan agency and some union councils (UCs) of FR Bannu.
Speaking to media persons on the occasion, Dr Pervaiz Kamal said that polio eradication was priority of the government and regular campaigns were being conducted in FATA in order to protect children from life -long disability.
In reply to a question, DHS Fata said that in the Dec round of anti-polio campaign teams would reach out to a target population of 0.727 million children in the whole of FATA while 0.278 million children would be missed in inaccessible areas of North Waziristan agency, parts of South Waziristan and some UCs of FR Bannu.
Referring to Khyber Agency, he said that given the bulk of polio cases being reported from the agency special campaigns were being carried out in the agency and the November campaign has completed on December 10.
With regard to security of the teams, DHS FATA said that political administration was providing security to the teams beside army and FC was were also assisting teams wherever needed.
It is pertinent to mention here that 2650 teams have been constituted for the current round of campaign while 613 area incharges have been tasked to ensure vaccination to the target population.
FATA has recorded 51 polio cases so far in 2013 out of the total 74 cases in the country with Waziristan registering maximum cases of 24, followed by Khyber agency with 19 cases, 7 in FR Bannu and 01 in FR D.I.Khan.
Earlier, DHS Fata Dr Pervaiz Kamal administered polio drops to the children to formally kick off three day campaign against the crippling disease.
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