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22 Million Children Vaccinated in 4 Days of Polio DriveHealth
Health teams have already reached 22.1 million children in four days, and with the drive running until November 8, the push is on to cover every under-five.
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More than 22.1 million children have been vaccinated against polio in the first four days of Pakistan’s ongoing sub-national immunisation campaign, the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) said on Friday. The drive is under way in 97 selected districts across the country, and teams are now into the fifth day of the campaign, which continues until November 8.
The campaign is aiming to reach about 24 million children under the age of five, and more than 200,000 frontline polio workers are taking part in the effort. Health teams are going door to door in the selected districts, working to make sure that no child in the target age group is left without the protective drops.
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According to the figures shared by the centre, Punjab has vaccinated 8.535 million children in 13 selected districts, while more than 6.382 million children have received the drops in 20 districts of Sindh. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the number stands at over 4.429 million children across 27 districts, and in Balochistan, 2.008 million children have been covered in 31 districts. More than 450,000 children have been vaccinated in Islamabad, around 160,000 in three districts of Gilgit-Baltistan, and about 192,000 in two districts of Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
The campaign is being run at the same time in Pakistan and Afghanistan, in a joint effort to strengthen the regional fight against the virus and to prevent poliovirus from being carried across the border. The two countries are working in step so that the virus has fewer chances to spread from one side to the other.
Despite the progress, the NEOC warned that the threat of poliovirus has not gone away. Polio is incurable, the centre said, and vaccination is the only effective protection against the lifelong disability the disease can cause. That is why health workers are pressing on with the drive, district by district, until the target is reached.
The centre has urged parents to cooperate with the vaccination teams visiting their areas and to make sure that every child below the age of five receives the polio drops. Parents have also been asked to complete their children’s routine immunisation on time, as part of keeping their children protected.
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