Pakistan's anti-polio drive 'fails' to achieve target

ISLAMABAD: The final sub-national polio campaign in Pakistan for the year 2024 has not reached its intended target and a total of 1,122,537 children remained unvaccinated, ARY News reported citing sources.

The campaign primarily aimed to vaccinate 36,360,037 children, but only 35,712,922 children were successfully vaccinated which indicates that 98 per cent of the vaccination target was achieved, the sources said.

They added 739,201 children were not available for vaccination during the polio campaign in Pakistan while 71,330 parents refused to allow their children to receive the vaccine.

The sources said that in total, the sub-national campaign left 302,006 children unvaccinated.

However, the campaign saw success in Gilgit-Baltistan and Islamabad, where 100 per cent of children received the polio vaccine.

In Punjab, Sindh, and Balochistan, vaccination rates reached 99 per cent, while Azad Kashmir managed to vaccinate 98 per cent of its children. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa recorded the lowest vaccination rate at 95 per cent.

According to province-wise breakup quoted by sources, 178,406 children in Punjab, 94,229 in Sindh, 342,513 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 60,588 and 28,705 in Baluchistan children under age of 5 years remained unvaccinated during the anti-polio campaign.

Additionally, during the campaign in Azad Kashmir, 4,103 children were also unvaccinated.

It is keep in view that the 2024 final sub-national polio campaign was conducted in two phases: the first phase took place from December 16 to 22, while the second phase ran from December 30 to January 5.

The campaign was executed in a total of 143 districts and 7,396 union councils.

'Over 1.1mn children left unvaccinated in Pakistan's 2024 anti-polio drive'