Seven-day anti-polio campaign launched in Islamabad

ISLAMABAD: The district administration of Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) has launched a seven-day anti-polio campaign in which children below the age of five years will be vaccinated.

According to details, Additional Deputy Commissioner East Usman Ashraf along with District Health Officer Zaeem Zia and Director Health Services Dr Iqbal Afridi started the anti-polio campaign by administering polio drops to children under five years of age at CDA Health Centre I-8 Markaz.

Speaking on the occasion, Usman Ashraf said that the campaign would continue till November 28 and polio teams and health workers would administer polio drops house to house.

He said that 408,000 children up to five years of age would be administered anti-polio drops. The teams will also visit public places, markets, bus stands and other places to achieve the target, he told.

He directed the officers to work as a team and take diligent and serious measures to achieve the desired goal.

Earlier in September, it was reported that the National Polio Lab (NPL) detected polio virus in sewage water samples collected from five cities, including Peshawar, Swat, Rawalpindi, Bannu and South Waziristan.

They added that the NPL detected poliovirus in 17 climatic samples collected from KP, eight from Punjab and one from Sindh and Islamabad. The lab has detected the virus in sewage water samples collected from five cities, sources added.

In the current year, NPL has detected the Polio virus for the eighth time in samples collected from Bannu, the fourth time in Peshawar, the third time in Rawalpindi and Swat, whole for the first time in South Waziristan.