Commendable figure of 98 percent children were vaccinated against polio in a campaign that was conducted in March in FATA, local media reported on Wednesday.
Number of parents who were in denial over children’s vaccination for the longest time has also ebbed.
The tribal areas which were out of polio teams’ reach due to terrorists are finally clear owing to army’s operation called Zarb-e-Azb. Lacs of children were devoid of polio vaccines every year in those areas.
A report issued in the matter states that not a single case of the crippling virus surfaced in the last six months. Authorities concerned said that Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) is now vulnerable to virus from Afghanistan and other parts of Pakistan.
FATA secretariat stated that awareness among the people is developing while a four-day campaign is underway in different tribal areas.
The campaign aims at vaccinating around ten lac children.
Earlier last week, Bill Gates said Wednesday that “with any luck” polio will be eradicated by 2017 in the last two countries where it remains active, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Microsoft founder, who has donated billions to fight global diseases, was speaking in Doha at the official announcement of a $50 million donation from Qatar to “The Lives and Livelihood Fund”.
This is a partnership fund between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), who together have been working to try to eradicate diseases, including polio, since 2012.
“There’s very few cases left, just two countries at this point, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and with any luck either this year or next year we will have the last cases of those,” Gates said.
Pakistan has already made it an official target to rid the country of polio in 2016 though there have already been eight cases recorded so far this year.
