ISLAMABAD, Nov 5: A three-day nationwide anti-polio and vitamin-A supplementation campaign will be inaugurated at the National Institute of Health on Tuesday.

The federal minister for minorities and culture, Col (Rtd) S.K. Tressler, will kick off the drive by administering polio vaccine drops to children.

The NWFP religious minister, Qari Roohullah and intellectual and playwright, Fatima Surriya Bajiya, are also participating in the inauguration ceremony of the three day campaign, jointly organised by the national health authorities, World Health Organization and the Unicef on November 6, 7 and 8.

In the present campaign, polio vaccine drops would be administered to 31 million children from birth to five years of age and vitamin A drops will be given to all children from six months to five years of age.

According to the extended programme of immunization (EPI) sources, only 69 cases of polio have been reported, so far, this year and anti-polio campaign has nearly achieved the target of complete eradication of polio from Pakistan.

Pakistan started the national immunization days in 1994 when 1800 cases of polio were detected. However, in the absence of the national surveillance system at that time, the health authorities estimated the number of polio cases to be between 6000 to 7000.

Till the first week of October this year, 1200 suspected cases were reported from different parts of the country to the National Institute of Health. Or the total tests on 74 cases are still to be completed while in rest of the samples, only 69 cases of polio could be confirmed.

As the eradication effort enters its final stages there is a need to intensify measures to ensure that no child is missed and every child upto the age of five years receives polio vaccination during every campaign.

Special arrangements have been made to vaccinate Afghan refugee children in Balochistan and NWFP and additional vaccines have been arranged for this purpose.

There is a fear among the health experts that due to the heavy influx of Afghan refugees, who are a source of cross border transmission of polio virus, it may retard our progress towards achieving the target of total elimination of Polio from Pakistan.

Vaccination teams have been placed at various refugee camps in the area. Vaccination sites have also been set up at Torkham and Chaman borders so that newly arriving refugees do not miss the opportunity of being vaccinated.

Special arrangements have been made to cover very remote and far-flung areas, multi-storey buildings, slums, Kutcha Abadis, brick kilns and nomadic populations.

Polio vaccination teams will also be present at different transit points all over the country including railway stations, airports and bus stands.

In addition to the National Immunization Days, a special immunization campaign was conducted in August this year in high- risk areas including Peshawar, Khyber Agency, DG Khan, Muzaffarabad, Hyderabad, Quetta, Qila Abdullah, and other similar areas.

Frequent campaigns have significantly decreased the intensity of wild polio virus transmission overall, as indicated by the Acute Flaccid Paralysis surveillance system operating throughout Pakistan.

The entire vaccine for the campaign has been provided by Japanese government whereas vitamin-A capsules have been donated by Unicef.