PESHAWAR: A three-day anti-polio was launched in 25 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including tribal districts and afghan refugee camps to administer polio drops to over 5.5 million childern- around 4.7 million in settled districts and 0.8 million in Tribal Districts under the age of five, here on Monday.
The campaign will be conducted in 18 settled and seven tribal districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including Peshawar, Charsadda, Mardan, Swabi, Swat, Malakand, Battagram, Chitral, Kohat, Karak, Hangu, Bannu, Dir Upper, Dir Lower, Lakki Marwat, Tank, Dera Ismail Khan, Bajaur, Momand, Khyber, Orakzai, Kurram, North Waziristan and South Waziristan. Total of 21861 (17588+4273) teams have been constituted to vaccinate the target children out of which 15525 (15547+3937) were mobile teams, 1196 (1187+235) fixed, 820 (854+101) transit teams,153 roaming teams and 4075 (4052+1134) area in-charges have been deployed to ensure quality campaign, the meeting was informed.
Health department says that all age vaccination will be started at Torkham border for all the passengers and visitors crossing international border in view of the virus circulation in the last two endemic countries of the world. Strict security measures have been taken to provide conducive environment to the teams to carry out quality campaign as low transmission season was the best opportunity to weaken and hit the virus and stop wild polio virus transmission in the region.
More than 20,000 security personnel in the settled districts will be deployed with the teams to ensure their personnel security during the March campaign and thanked Home Dept, Army, Police and other law enforcing agencies for their support in polio campaigns.
Parents have been appealed to not pay heed to propagandas and misconceptions and vaccinate their children against polio saying that polio vaccine was the safest vaccine used by all Muslim countries.
It was informed that the polio eradication is national emergency and is led by the government of Pakistan with the technical support of partners and brushed aside the rumors about polio programme as western conspiracy against our children.
It was a matter of grave concern that wild polio virus was still circulating in Pakistan and Afghanistan whereas the world has eliminated the virus long age using the same vaccine, he added.
Therefore, it was a matter of national pride and as responsible country of the world to give final push to polio and eradicate the disease from the last endemic region of the globe thus making the world polio free.
It is pertinent to mention here that the country has recorded six polio cases in 2019, so far one each from Bannu, Hangu, Bajaur, District Khyber, Karachi and Lahore so far.
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