Anti-Polio campaign will start from tomorrow

Lahore: Special Anti-Polio campaign will be launched from 10 to 12 September in 25 polio-risky districts of Punjab. During this campaign, polio vaccine will be administrated to more than 99.8 lakh children upto the age of 5 year.

This was disclosed by Special Assistant to Punjab Chief Minster on Health, Kh. Salman Rafique, while inaugurating the anti-polio campaign by administering polio vaccine to the children of nomadic locality at Shahdera, today. He said that 3-days special anti-polio campaign is being carried out in such districts of Punjab including Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Attok, Mianwali, Bakher, Layyah, Muzaffargarh and Rajanpur where polio virus is being found in environment as well as in sewerage water samples. He further stated that the campaign will specially focus on districts of Punjab adjacent to Khyber Paktunkhwa. He said that due to the special circumstances and terrorist activities, polio campaign cannot be carried out effectively in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as a result of which lakh of children are deprived of getting polio vaccine, therefore polio cases are prominent over there.

Kh. Salman Rafique said that polio virus found anywhere in the country is a continuous threat for the children. He said that keeping in view the above mentioned situation, special anti-polio campaign is being launched in Punjab so that children could be saved from permanent disability.

He appealed to the parents to cooperate with government against polio and administer polio vaccine to their children upto the age of five years every time. He said that polio is not only a childhood disease but disability for entire life. He said that more than 22 thousand mobile teams have been set up for administering polio vaccine to 99.8 lakh children and strict procedures have been evolved for the surveillance and monitoring of these teams.

He said that besides representatives of World Health Organization and UNICEF, special monitoring teams comprising officers of Health Department have been constituted which will review the performance of vaccination teams.