Nationwide anti-polio drive to start from tomorrow

ISLAMABAD: A nationwide anti-polio campaign of varied duration will begin tomorrow to administer vaccine drops to children under five years age.  

During the campaign, a statement said, that polio teams of the health department would go door to door in all 159 districts of the country.

In Punjab, during a week-long polio campaign over 23 million children will be administered polio drops. The health department has declared Lahore, Faisalabad and Multan as the most sensitive cities in this regard.

In Sindh, nearly 10.03 million children up to five years of age will be administered with anti-polio vaccine drops during a week-long campaign.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (LP), over 7.4 million children up to five years of age will be administered anti-polio drops during five-day drive.

In Balochistan, over 2.5 million children up to five years of age would be administered anti-polio drops during week-long polio drive.

In Gilgit-Baltistan, over two hundred fifty thousand children will be vaccinated during five day campaign. In case a polio team does not visit any home, the parents can access to helpline 1166.

Last year, Islamabad reported six polio cases as Pakistan and Afghanistan remained the only two countries in the world where polio remains endemic.

In Dec 2023, a nine-month-old child in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Orakzai district became the latest victim of the crippling disease. The Ministry of Health confirmed that the polio virus was found in a 9-month-old child in Orakzai district.