Anti-polio drive continues

A three-day national immunisation campaign against polio continued on Wednesday to administer oral anti-polio vaccine to more than 32 million children below five years of age across the country.
Federal health ministry and provincial health ministries have constituted 75,000 mobile teams comprising more than 150,000 health workers and volunteers for the campaign started from March 7.
The mobile teams are going door-to-door to administer polio drops to children in all corners of the country. Over 60,000 children are being immunized against polio in the rural areas in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).
Islamabad district health department has constituted over 300 mobile teams for administering polio drops the children in the remote rural areas.
As many as 25 fixed centres and five transit camps have also been established for the campaign.
The anti-polio campaign is also being carried out in all the seven districts of Azad Kashmir, including Muzaffarabad, Bagh, Poonch, Sudanoti, Kotli Mirpur and Bhimber.
During the campaign, about 600,000 children under five years of age will be administered polio drops by 19 catch up teams and 1,841 mobile teams in Azad Kashmir.
While 387 fixed spots and 177 transit points have been made to ensure maximum immunisation to the children up to five years of age.
Like other parts of the country, the door-to-door anti-polio immunization campaign is being carried out to save the children of below five years of age from the crippling disease in Northern Areas. Some 185,873 children are being given anti-polio drops in all districts of Northern Areas.
While, the health department has constituted 3026 teams to administer polio drops to more than 165,000 children in the whole Northern Areas.
According to official sources, there were only 27 cases of polio reported from Southern Punjab this year, which was result of government's efforts to completely eliminate this deadly disease from the country.
The parents have been asked to bring their children to the vaccination centres to save them from polio.
The nazims of district governments are also playing an active role for elimination of polio from the country. Every nazim has been assigned a task to make his district a polio-free area. The campaign will continue for three days till March 9.