Anti-polio drive kicks-off in Karachi, KP

KARACHI: A nine-day anti-polio campaign to eradicate this crippling disease of Polio is underway in one hundred six Union Councils (UCs) of Karachi, ARY News reported on Monday.

During the campaign more than 1.5 million children of aged upto five years will be administered anti-polio vaccine while for the first time injections of polio vaccine would also be given to over 1.48 million children.

Meanwhile, a special three-day anti-polio drive is also in progress in twenty one districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

Focal Person to the prime minister on polio eradication Babar bin Atta on Friday said that the presence of active polio virus in sewage of 10 cities was alarming and worrisome.

Terming polio vaccination a national duty, Babar bin Atta urged the parents to get their children administered anti-polio vaccine to protect them from the crippling disease.

Read more: DG health confirms polio virus presence in Faisalabad

He said that the polio virus’s presence in sewage water was confirmed in Karachi, Sukkur, Peshawar, Mardan, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Sukkur and other cities.

Earlier, two new polio cases were reported in the country. The first case was reported in a four-month-old girl in Hangu, while another case was detected in an eight-month-old boy in Lahore’s Shalimar Town area.

He had said a total of four cases of polio had been reported in the ongoing year.