Islamabad: The Pakistan government is launching a five-day countrywide polio campaign from Monday to Friday.
During the door-to-door campaign 39.6 million children under the age of five will be targeted.
Five more cases have been reported recently in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan, the two worst polio-hit provinces of the country.
With these incidents, the total count of polio cases detected in 2020 has reached 17. Compared to the last three years, 2019 turned out to be the worst with 144 cases while 12 cases were reported in 2018 and only eight in 2017.
Speaking to Gulf News, Dr Rana Muhammad Safdar, Pakistan’s National Manager of Emergency Operation Cell (EOC) for Polio, said the anti-polio drive would be conducted across the country except for Karachi as the city started the campaign a week ahead.
During the campaign, over 265,000 frontline polio workers will go street to street and knock at every door to protect Pakistani children against the crippling virus, he said.
In order to benefit from the low temperatures, Pakistan’s Polio Eradication programme scheduled three back to back national campaigns during the months of December, February and April with two additional strategic response rounds in high risk districts during January and March, said Dr Safdar.
About the latest five cases found in KP and Balochistan, he said four cases were reported from KP and all from one District of Lakki Marwat where a 22-month-old boy, resident of Union Council Ghundi Hassan Khel (UC), Bettani tehsil, has been found infected with polio.
The Emergency Polio Centre, Balochistan, has initiated another polio vaccination campaign after recent rise of cases in the province and officials are hopeful that they might be able to check the sudden increase in polio cases in the province, said Dr Safdar.
A number of families in KP and Balochistan are still refusing to allow vaccinators to administrator polio drops to their children, which has become a hurdle for the authorities concerned in ending polio virus in the province, said Dr Safdar. About the rise in number of polio cases during 2019, he said the fake news incident in Peshawar in April last year showing children falling unconscious after receiving polio drops dealt a heavy blow to the campaign in KP and the authorities had to call it off temporarily.
The programme is making all out efforts to ensure a polio-free future and is supported by all segments of the society including medical community, top religious scholars, journalists, celebrities etc. making it a truly national effort.
It is important for parents and caregivers to welcome Polio frontline workers knocking at their doors and support them in vaccinating children in the neighborhood as well. The programme has also launched the “Sehat Tahhafuz Helpline 1166” with local language capacities that allows the public to seek advice and report children who have not been vaccinated.
