5-day polio eradication campaign to start from Nov 20      

LAHORE: The five-day national polio eradication campaign will start across Punjab from Monday.

This was stated by Minister for Primary and Secondary Healthcare Khawaja Imran Nazir on Sunday.

He said that the Punjab government wanted to build immunity of every child before the polio high-risk season started in May next year.

Vaccinating every child was absolutely critical in order to ensure that no more child suffered from the incurable disease, the minister added.

Secretary Primary and Secondary Healthcare Ali Jan Khan said that the province would be running the campaign more aggressively in Rawalpindi, Lahore and South Punjab.

"A polio case in Lodhran and consistent positive environmental samples in Rawalpindi indicate that children are more vulnerable in these districts," he said.

Punjab's Emergency Operation Coordinator Dr Munir Ahmed said that over 44,000 teams would go door-to-door to vaccinate over 18.5 million under-five children all over the province.

Dr Munir said parents might contact helpline 0800-99000 if polio teams did not turn up in their areas.

Punjab had no polio case in 2016, but with the beginning of 2017, a child was paralysed by the virus in Lodhran, leaving the family devastated. Five polio cases have been reported in Pakistan this year from Punjab, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan, Sindh and Balochistan, respectively.