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| April 16, 2003 | Wednesday | Safar 13, 1424 |
Anti-polio campaign begins
ISLAMABAD, April 15: Over 30 million children under five years of age will be administered anti-polio drops during a three-day immunization campaign launched on Tuesday.
To administer the drops, over 70,000 teams have been constituted by health departments of the provinces, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Northern Areas and the Capital Development Authority.
For the purpose, 150,000 vaccination centres have been established where nearly 500,000 people, including doctors, paramedics, teachers, girl guides, boy scouts, prayer leaders and members of voluntary organizations would perform the duty.
Vaccination points have been established on the Afghan and Iran borders to check transmission of the virus across the border, where thousand of children were given anti-polio and vitamin-A drops.
The Islamabad district health officer told APP that 200 mobile teams of the department were engaged to administer anti-polio and vitamin-A drops in a house-to-house campaign.
He said that during the three days, over 50,000 children were targeted to be administered drops in the rural areas.
The campaign was started in Sindh to immunize about 8.5 million children. A strategy has been adopted to ensure that no fresh case of polio takes place in the province.
In Karachi, Pakistan-born Afghan children residing in refugee camps are to be particularly immunized for which Persian and Pushto speaking women vaccinators have been hired. Some 30,000 to 35,000 children are residing in the camps. The population of the camps is said to be around 200,000.—APP
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