Polio campaign begins today: Over 20m children to be immunised

LAHORE: The first National Immunisation Days (NID) polio campaign commences in Punjab on Monday (today). In Lahore, Rawalpindi and Faisalabad, the campaign will continue for seven days, with two days dedicated to reaching Not Available children. In the rest of the province, the NIDs will last five days, also with two of these earmarked to reaching Not Available children.

More than 199,000 polio workers will participate in the drive to immunise 20.54 million children under the age of five against polio. This includes 16,292 area in-charges, 3951 union council supervisors, 84579 mobile team members, 4,853 fixed team members and 2,652 transit team members.

Punjab Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) has deployed officials from all areas to facilitate implementation of the polio campaign in priority areas.

“Although Punjab is free of polio case since October 2020, but as long as polio exists anywhere, it is a threat to children everywhere”, said Emergency Operations Centre Coordinator and head of the polio programme in Punjab Khizer Afzaal in a statement on Sunday. The EOC head acknowledged that positive environmental samples from mega cities have been of concern and cautioned that the presence of virus in sewage samples must send an urgent message to parents to ensure that children were administered two polio drops under every immunisation drive. Recounting the steps taken to eradicate polio, the EOC coordinator reaffirmed that Punjab government had prioritised tracking and vaccination of Not Available children with focus on very high-risk mega districts of Faisalabad, Lahore and Rawalpindi. During the NIDs, Punjab has set up transit vaccination points to immunise cross-border and inter-provincial populations in efforts to eradicate polio,” the EOC head said urging parents to cooperate with the transit teams.