‘Pakistan close to eradicating polio virus’

PESHAWAR: Coordinator, Emergency Operations Centre, (CEO) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Atif Rehman, Friday said the country was close to eradicating the polio virus. Speaking at a meeting convened to discuss the preparation for the upcoming national immunisation days (NIDs) campaign starting from January 15, he said the country was never closer to eradication as it was now. He said it was the right time to tap all available resources to eradicate polio.

The official emphasised on reaching out to every child in the drive, saying a single child left unvaccinated might be putting the lives of other children at risk of being falling victim to virus. Atif Rehman urged parents and all sections of society to help in eradicating the virus by ensuring that every child gets vaccinated during every polio campaign.

Earlier, the meeting was briefed on the preparation for the coming anti-polio campaign with the total target population of 5.71 million children in the province. A total of 18,656 teams have been constituted which included 15,940 mobile, 1544 fixed, 926 transit while 246 roaming teams.

The meeting was informed that stringent measures were taken to ensure secure environment to the teams and more than 30,000 police personal would be deployed for the security cover. Micro plans were updated and all the high-risk and mobile population were mapped out so that no child could be missed in the campaign.