Five-day polio immunization campaign to begin in Punjab from tomorrow

LAHORE: A five-day polio immunization campaign will begin in Punjab from January 11 (tomorrow) aimed at vaccinating 20 million children in the province, ARY NEWS reported.

According to details, the polio immunization programme will continue from January 11 to 15 which would involve 48,000 teams.

The polio programme of Punjab said that the process to train the polio teams have been completed and over 20 million children would be immunized during the five-day campaign.

“Besides being administered polio drops, the children would also get capsules of Vitamin A,” it said.

Lahore would se major mobilization for the campaign with 4900 teams working in the field to administer polio drops to 1.8 million children.

The spokesman of the programme said that polio cases have reached upto 84 in Pakistan including 14 from the Punjab province.

Earlier on January 6, the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) had approved Rs US$60 million for Pakistan aimed at supporting the polio immunization campaign in the country.

The IDB had signed an agreement for polio vaccination in the country.

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A handout issued by the economic affairs ministry had detailed that the US$60 billion would include a $39 billion loan and $21 billion grant from the IDB for the vaccination.

The agreements for the provision of a loan and a grant had been signed by the secretary of economic affairs and a representative of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) during a ceremony at the economic affairs division.

The amount would be used for purchasing the polio vaccine and performing other responsibilities during the polio immunisation drive, carried out by 260,000 polio workers.