Polio vaccine drive kicks off in Sindh

Sindh Governor Mohammad Zubair inaugurated a national polio vaccination drive on Saturday by administering vaccine drops to a child at the Governor’s House and said administering the vaccine to all children under five years of age was pivotal to protecting them from the crippling disease.

As many as 8.4 million children under the age of five would be vaccinated during the six-day immunisation campaign (national immunization days) in Sindh, and around 2.31 million children would be vaccinated in Karachi alone. Authorities have constituted 56,000 teams and deployed area incharges to conduct the drive.

Rotary Club’s Polio Plus Committee chief Aziz Memon, Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) Coordinator Fayyaz Jatoi, Ahmed Ali Shaikh, Saleem Rao, Dr Fahan Essa, Irfan Qureshi and others also attended the inauguration ceremony at the Governor’s House.

Zubair said reaching out to all under-five children was an enormous task and a huge challenge, but the task had to be completed at any cost as children who were not administered anti-polio drops were extremely vulnerable to the virus.

He lauded the joint efforts of government and other institutions for the eradication of the menace of polio from the province, saying that due to their strenuous efforts, there had been no polio cases in Karachi since January 2016 and since November 2016 in other districts of the province.

Commending the excellent work by all concerned, he emphasised the need for continuing the efforts in this regard so as to completely eradicate the disease from the province.

The governor maintained that the federal government was also taking concrete measures for polio eradication to refute the misconception of Pakistan being a polio virus carrier country. Keeping in view the arrival of foreign investors, it was essential to make Pakistan a polio-free country for encouraging rapid investment in Pakistan, he said.

Aziz Memon of the Rotary Club and Polio Plus Committee said that it was a joint effort of the Rotary Club, WHO, Unicef and Malinda Gates Foundation, which had borne fruit. The notable decrease in polio cases was the result of their coordinated efforts, he added.

Incharge Emergency Operations Centre Fayyaz Jatoi informed the governor that as many as 8.4 million children under five years of age would be administered polio drops during the NID, the number included 2.31 million children of Karachi. A total of 27,896 teams, including 9,809 for Karachi, had been constituted to achieve the task, he added.