Three-day national campaigns against polio started on Tuesday and will continue till July 15 throughout the country. According to the Expanded Programme for Immunisation (EPI) sources, government has set 35-million children target under 'five years, in the anti-polio vaccination campaign in all parts of the country, Fata, Fana and Azad Kashmir.
Federal Ministry of Health and Provincial health departments in collaboration with World Health Organisation (WHO) and NGOs are actively participating in anti-polio campaign.
Federal Health Minister Mohammad Nasir Khan in a statement said that polio teams are going door to door and giving anti-polio drops to all the children from birth to five-year of age during the three-day campaign.
He said that it is a moment of joy and happiness that in Balochistan and Punjab no polio case was reported while in other parts of the country the prevalence rate is at record low.
He said that over 70,000 teams of health workers have been constituted by the health departments of all the four provinces, AJK and Fana to administer anti-polio drops to children aged under five.
The Ministry of Health officials told APP that 150,000 special polio vaccination centres have been established throughout the country where nearly 500,000 people including doctors, paramedics, teachers, girl guides, boy scouts, Imam Masajid and members of different voluntary organisations will administer anti-polio vaccine.
Minister of Health Mohammad Nasir Khan has appealed to parents of the children up to age five to ensure that their children are administered vaccine during the campaign.
In case they miss out, they can take their children to the nearest Vaccination Centre, Hospital or Basic Health Unit and administer them anti-polio drops, he said.
He also urged elected representatives at all District, Tehsii and Union Council levels should extend full co-operation in the success of the polio eradication programme and particularly asked the women representatives to help in implementation of the campaign.
He showed satisfaction over the implementation of earlier campaigns as a result of which only 19 cases of polio have been identified during the current calendar year.
He said that it is a multi-sectoral effort of the government, WHO, Unicef and the donor community to give vaccine to children of Pakistan below the age of five years. Polio teams were reaching millions of children in every nook and corner of the country to administer anti-polio vaccine to the children under five on first day of national campaign to root out the polio completely from the country.
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