Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor, Barrister Masood Kausar on Friday inaugurated a three-day national immunisation campaign for the eradication of polio, which will start from April 23. Speaking on the occasion, the Governor while highly eulogising the devoted and courageous role and services of polio eradication teams, has said "keeping in view the severe consequences of the fatal disease, we should take it a mission to reach to each and every child and protect their future."
He added there was a need to observe a complete polio eradication week both in the province and Fata to ensure that not a single child was deprived of the vaccination facility. The Governor said, "though the reported polio cases during the current year are comparatively less to the figures came to lime light in 2011, yet we fully acknowledge the concern being expressed by not only the President and Prime Minister of Pakistan but the international community as well and we expect more active and efficient role of the public opinion circles especially the media in making the efforts more meaningful."
The Governor formally inaugurated the campaign by administering polio drops to minor children at the ceremony wherein the health authorities of the province and Fata, while highlighting their targets, said in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 4.93 million children had been targeted while in Fata more than one million children would be administered polio drops for which a total of 19,974 polio teams including 3,366 meant for Fata had been mobilised.
Earlier, the respective health authorities of the province as well as Fata further detailed that amongst polio teams of the province 1,581 are stationed at fixed and 783 are placed at transit points while in Fata, 274 fixed points and 101 transit routes have been manned with fully equipped with extra quantities of vaccines to make the campaign a real success.