4th anti-polio drive begins today

LAHORE:Punjab is all set to launch its fourth polio eradication campaign of the year from Monday (today), targeting 9.1 million children.

The campaign is being labelled as a key initiative to block local poliovirus circulation. It will be rolled out in 10 districts of the province including Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan, DG Khan, Rajanpur, Rahimyar Khan, Sheikhupura, Mianwali, Faisalabad and Okara. The campaign will be held partially in Rawalpindi, Mianwali and Sheikhupura while all areas of rest of the districts will be covered fully.

In Lahore, Rawalpindi and Faisalabad, the campaign will last seven days while in rest of the districts, campaign will continue for five days only. In all districts, last two days of the campaign will be allocated to cover the leftover children. Over 67,000 polio workers will participate in the campaign including 60,000 mobile team members.

The head of the polio eradication programme and Emergency Operations Centre Coordinator in Punjab Khizer Afzaal reiterated that all environmental samples which have tested positive in Punjab are linked to polio virus clusters active across the border in Afghanistan or other endemic and high-risk districts of Pakistan. “This proves that Punjab is at the risk of poliovirus importation. Therefore, Punjab is taking concrete steps to prevent the local circulation of virus by implementing immediate outbreak responses,” he added.

The EOC head underscored that Punjab had set up transit vaccination points to immunise cross-border and inter-provincial populations to prevent virus from entering Punjab, urging parents to cooperate with polio teams. The Punjab polio eradication programme head acknowledged the hard work of ‘resilient and brave workers who are determined to protect every child in the province from the crippling virus and together we will soon achieve the goal of eradication in Pakistan’.

He underlined that multiple doses of polio drops offered the best protection against polio virus and every single child needed to be vaccinated in order achieve population immunity and prevent virus circulation if ‘we are to eradicate polio from infected zones’.

It is worth mentioning that polio is a highly infectious disease caused by poliovirus mainly affecting children under the age of five years. It invades the nervous system and can cause paralysis or even death. While there is no cure for polio, vaccination is the most effective way to protect children from this crippling disease.

Each time a child under the age of five is vaccinated, their protection against the virus is increased. Repeated immunisations have protected millions of children from polio, allowing almost all countries in the world to become polio-free, except for the two endemic countries of Pakistan and Afghanistan.