PESHAWAR: Three days anti-polio vaccination campaign would start in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) from November 20 under the supervision of surgeons and security provided by political agents, commissioners and the armed forces.
The anti-polio vaccination campaign would continue from November 20 to November 22, followed by a short drive to administer polio vaccine to those children who might have been missed out in earlier drives.
A total of 1,040,396 children below the age of 5 years would be vaccinated by 4,384 teams, comprising 3,990 mobile teams, 293 fixed teams and 101 transit teams.
During the campaign, vitamin A drops would also be administered to address the deficiency of vitamin A among children in FATA. Polio vaccination teams would be administering vitamin A drops to a total of 936,356 children from the age of 6 months to 5 years, across the tribal areas.
FATA Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) Coordinator Muhammad Zubair Khan advised the EOC Team to ensure vaccination of all children under five years in FATA, with special focus on the children who missed the immunisation drive due to one reason or another.
He said, “Effective collaboration for the improvement in quality of campaigns, robust oversight of campaign monitoring and accountability are vital to bring polio cases in FATA to zero.”
“We should concentrate on high-risk areas and ensure that our teams reached children in every nook and corner of FATA,” he added.
While appreciating efforts of polio field workers, Zubair Khan said, “Dedication and commitment of polio field teams have brought us this far, and I am sure their tenacity will lead us to polio eradication in FATA.”
FATA was the only region which had achieved National Emergency Action Plan (NEAP) 2016-17 target of 95 per cent in at least three anti-polio campaigns, as coverage for February, April and May was 96 per cent, 95 per cent and 97 per cent respectively.
It merits mention here that FATA completed one year without any polio case on July 27. In the ongoing year, not a single case was reported from FATA, whereas, last year only two polio cases were reported from the tribal areas.