Special drive to start tomorrow to vaccinate over 3.3m children against polio in high-risk UCs

Around 3.3 million children living in the high-risk union councils (UCs) of Karachi, Hyderabad and other areas of Sindh would be vaccinated during a special polio drive starting tomorrow (Monday).

Officials said that more than 30,000 polio workers would be going door to door to administer the oral polio vaccine (OPV) drops to the children of those UCs.

Presiding over a meeting to review the arrangements for the special polio drive, Sindh Chief Secretary Dr Muhammad Sohail Rajput said that after the emergence of polio cases in the country, every child entering the province would be vaccinated against the polio virus.

Provincial Coordinator for Emergency Operations Centre Fayyaz Abbasi told the meeting that a special campaign would be launched in Karachi and Hyderabad division and other high-risk districts of Sindh on June 27.

He said that 11 cases of polio had been reported in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and in the campaign starting on Monday, 3.3 million children in high-risk UCs of Karachi, Hyderabad and other regions of Sindh would be vaccinated against poliovirus.

Abbasi maintained that another special polio campaign for Larkana, Sukkur and Shaheed Benazirabad would be launched in selected high-risk UCs on June 29. He added that in the last campaign, more than 385,000 children were vaccinated against the poliovirus at the transit points of the province, of whom 9,010 children belonged to southern KP.

The chief secretary said that all the children entering the province should be vaccinated against polio. “Though no case of poliovirus has been reported in Sindh for the last two years, we have to be more vigilant as population comes to Sindh from other provinces of the country including the affected areas in south KP.”

Dr Rajput directed Karachi Commissioner Muhammad Iqbal Memon to persuade the refusing parents to get their children vaccinated during the special campaign and also engage the community and civil society in this regard.

He asked all the deputy commissioners to monitor the polio campaign in their respective districts and inaugurate the campaign along with political and social personalities of their areas.

The meeting was also attended by EOC Sindh core team members, all the deputy commissioners of the Karachi and Hyderabad divisions, and representatives of Unicef and World Health Organisation.