Anti-polio drive achieves target as 100pc children vaccinated in Multan

MULTAN: Polio workers in Multan claimed to have vaccinated 100 percent of the kids in homes into the fifth day of its fortnight-long anti-polio follow-up drive, ARY News reported on Saturday.

The workers of eradication drive said they already vaccinated 100 percent of children residing in homes by the third day of the follow-up campaign. They said that the fourth day saw vaccination of over 33,242 children.

Of the following day, the team briefed it vaccinated 20,352 children and said that they will not stop until they vaccinate all the kids not currently present in their homes or even cities.

The team in their briefing asserted that they will keep the drive alive up to 14 days and will follow up on each kid remaining due to being out of the station and out of their homes.

It stressed that the eradication team was resolute in their commitment to clean Pakistan of the disabling poliovirus.

Present in the briefing, the Multan deputy commissioner Amir Khattak termed the team “our heroes”.

Khattak said that the nation prided in the team for successfully conducting their polio eradication drive. He noted that the team-members waded through sewerage water laying on the ways to get through to children.

READ: 30.4 mln children vaccinated in first three days of anti-polio drive: sources

Earlier on Thursday, it was reported that anti-polio drive gave positive results across the country, as National Anti-Polio Programme has achieved 85 per cent of its set target in three days, said sources.

Some well-informed sources said that into the first three days of the anti-polio drive as many as 30.4 million children were vaccinated against the crippling disease, that was out of the set target of 40.16 million.

In Punjab, 1.82 million children under the age of 5 years have been vaccinated by the polio workers. 74,80000 in Sindh, 57,20000 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 15,55,489 children have been vaccinated in Balochistan.