Anti-polio drive fails in achieving its set target

ISLAMABAD: The nationwide anti-polio campaign, held in three phases in January, ‘failed’ to achieve set targets, citing sources, ARY News reported on Monday.

Sources familiar with the matter said as many as 44.2% of children aged 5 years were said to be inhaled anti-polio drops, but the target was not met. As many as 552,256 children were left without anti-polio drops during the three-phase drive in the country.

In Punjab, 179,128 children, 137,532 in Sindh, 135,557 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 77,435 in Balochistan, 14,309 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and 3,586 children remained unvaccinated against polio.

Sources privy to the development said 86,286 children were also missed during the anti-polio drive in different areas, while 403,559 children were unavailable during three phases of the anti-polio drive.

In the first month of 2023, poliovirus had been confirmed in the environmental samples collected in the Punjab capital Lahore, said sources within the health ministry, adding that the genetic diagnosis of the virus is underway.

Sources said that Type-1 wild poliovirus was detected in the sewage sample collected from Lahore’s Gulshan-e-Ravi. The health teams collected the sewage samples from different areas of Lahore on January 3.