Anti-polio drive underway in Balochistan, KP and FATA

Balochistan’s Health Department has stated that 3.1 million children will be administered anti-polio drops in the province during the campaign, for which strict security measures have been taken. Frontier Corps (FC), Police and Levies personnel will provide security to the polio vaccination teams.

Special arrangements have also been made to administer polio vaccine to the children of Afghan refugees in the province.

Four-day anti-polio team campaign has also been underway in Malakand division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in which 1,25,000 children will be immunized from the crippling disease.

Approximately 2,00,000 children will also be administered anti-polio drops during the campaign in Kohat.

More than 9,00,000 children in FATA and Frontier Regions will be immunized from polio.

Efforts to get rid of the polio virus in Pakistan have been complicated in recent years, as the polio vaccination teams subjected to attacks by the militants who see the ‘Western conspiracy’ in polio immunization campaigns.

Pakistan’s polio cases are declining, with just 54 cases of the polio virus reported in the country last year, down by more than 80 percent from the year 2014, when the country suffered a large spike in the cases of the crippling disease.