2.4m children in Karachi to be vaccinated in anti-polio drive starting on Monday

By Our Correspondent
May 22, 2022

A polio vaccination drive will kick off in the city on Monday, May 23, in which 2.4 million children till the age of five years will be administered anti-polio drops.

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Karachi Commissioner Muhammad Iqbal Memon said that all the arrangements in this regard had been finalised. Commissioner Karachi’s task force, deputy commissioners and international partners were combating together against the polio virus in the city, he added.

The commissioner held a ceremony in the honour of frontline polio workers on Saturday at the Arts Council of Pakistan, in which he distributed shields to the anti-polio staff who went in the field to administer vaccine to the children until the age of five.

Memon stated that children from the age of six months until five years would also be given vitamin medicines.

The Commissioner Office had made all the arrangements for the vaccination drive to initiate on Monday, he said, adding that the drive would continue for a week and culminate on May 29.

The commissioner’s task force and all the seven deputy commissioners of the city would remain in contact with the Emergency Operation Centre (EOC). “Every effort will be made to make sure that the administration achieves its desired target of administering polio drops to the children,” he said.

He declared that their motive was to make Pakistan a polio-free country. The frontline polio workers along with paramedics and doctors, he said, were helping the country get rid of the menace of polio.

The commissioner said that fruitful results had been obtained in Karachi after various polio vaccination drives. He added that due to advocacy in the favour of administering polio drops, there was a decline in the parents resisting administration of polio vaccine to their children.

From July 2020, he said, there had not been a single case of polio in Karachi. As per the environmental surveys, he shared, there had not been any case of polio since June 2021.

Memon requested the parents to have their children administered anti-polio drops. EOC Coordinator Fayyaz Abbasi said that a helpline centre 1166 had been established where public could approach for any complaint regarding the drive.

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