LAHORE: The five-day national polio eradication drive would start all over Punjab on Monday, as per Primary and Secondary Healthcare Minister Khawaja Imran Nazir’s announcement last Thursday.
In his announcement, the minister had said that Punjab government wanted to immunise every child before the polio high-risk season started in May next year. He added that reaching and vaccinating every child was absolutely critical in order to ensure that no other child fell victim to the crippling disease.
Speaking on the occasion, Primary and Secondary Healthcare Secretary Ali Jan Khan said that the campaign would be implemented more aggressively in Rawalpindi, Lahore and South Punjab. “A polio case in Lodhran and consistent positive environmental samples in Rawalpindi indicate that children are more vulnerable in these districts”, he said.
Punjab’s Emergency Operation Coordinator Dr Munir Ahmed assured those present that despite the detection of a polio case and of consistent positive environmental samples, nothing would prove as a setback to their efforts of eradicating the virus. “The provincial emergency operations centre has constituted over 44 thousand teams who will go from door to door to vaccinate over 18.5 million children under the ages of five all over the province. They include teams deployed at major bus stands, inter-provincial borders, airports, railway stations and hospitals,” Dr Munir stated.
He further said that parents should contact the helpline number 0800-99000 in case polio teams did not turn up in their areas.
No cases of polio were reported in Punjab during 2016. However, at the beginning of 2017, a child from Lodhran was afflicted by the disease. Five polio cases have been reported in Pakistan this year from Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan, Sindh and Balochistan respectively.
