5.6m children to be vaccinated in coming polio drive

Over 5.6 million children will be vaccinated against polio in 16 high-risk districts of Sindh from Monday onwards. Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Pechuho said this on Friday as she attended a meeting of the Provincial Task Force on Polio Eradication at the Sindh Secretariat presided over by Chief Secretary Dr Sohail Rajput.

She informed the meeting that due to effective polio campaigns, no case of the crippling disease had been reported from the province in the last two-and-a-half years. She urged the parents to cooperate with the anti-polio teams during the campaign that was to start on Monday and get their children up to five years of age inoculated against the crippling disease.

She maintained that the role of social mobilisers and influencers should be made more effective to persuade parents who had earlier refused to administer anti-polio drops to their children.

The chief secretary directed all the deputy commissioners to launch the polio campaign said that 100 per cent of the target set for the campaign should be achieved as no shortcomings would be tolerated in this regard. He was of the view that as people from other provinces were continuously migrating to Sindh, an effective polio campaign should be launched at the entry points of the province.