Zero-dose children now being reached

Islamabad
The Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) is maintaining a record of vaccinating all
zero-dose children who had never received vaccination against any of the nine antigens being offered at government health facilities free of cost, the PM’s focal person on polio, Ayesha Raza Farooq, has stated in a press release issued here on Monday.
Ayesha said, recent campaign data of EOC shows that polio teams are providing support to cover zero-dose children during each polio campaign. In the current year, 145,155 zero-dose children were vaccinated in the January NIDs, 152,295 in the February NIDs, and 130,728 during the March NIDs.
The provincial data shows that 7,520, 8,997 and 7,518 zero-dose children were reached in Balochistan in three consecutive campaigns, respectively. In Sindh, 27,559, 24,850 and 23,788 zero-dose children were recorded and vaccinated against polio. In Punjab, 91,456, 99,426 and 79,498 such children were given polio vaccine. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 10,219, 11,384 and 11,078 zero-dose children were identified and vaccinated.
Indicators on monitoring of routine immunisation, along with polio eradication, has also been included in the National Emergency Action Plan on Polio 2015. The Independent Monitoring Board, in its report of 2014, had also recommended to the polio programme of Pakistan to integrate its efforts to strengthen routine immunisation to stop polio transmission in the country as strengthening routine immunisation is already part of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative programme’s 2013-18 plan.