Anti-polio campaign will be launched from September 10-12 in 25 districts of Punjab to administer the vaccine to children aged up to five years.
Assistant to Punjab Chief Minster on Health, Kh Salman Rafique, initiated the anti-polio campaign by administering the vaccine to the children in Shadra town. On the occasion he said that the three day campaign is being carried out in districts Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Attok, Mianwali, Bakher, Layyah, Muzaffargarh and Rajanpur.
He added that the virus is being found in environment as well as in sewerage water samples.
The campaigners are also focusing on districts of Punjab that lie adjacent to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). Salman said that due to the special circumstances and terrorist activities in the KP, polio campaign cannot be carried out effectively and as a result, hundreds of thousands of children of the province would not be immunized against the life long menace.
He said that keeping in perspective the above mentioned context, special anti-polio campaign is being launched in Punjab so that children in its jurisdiction and neighboring towns and villages of other provinces can be immunized.
He appealed to the parents to cooperate with the government in administering polio vaccine to their children aged up to five years.
The government has constituted 22 thousand mobile teams for administering polio vaccine to an estimated 10 million children. All the teams would be monitored by provincial officers along with representatives of World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF.
