KARACHI, July 8: Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad on Thursday urged nazims and district coordination officers in the province to involve councillors and ulema in polio eradication campaign, from July 13 to 15, to protect children from the crippling disease.

Presiding over a meeting attended by nazims and DCOs of almost all district governments in the province, he said detection of nine polio cases in Sindh, this year, was alarming and proved that there was some slackness shown by the officials concerned in vaccinating children.

"Basically, launch of three-day campaign is aimed at creating awareness among masses regarding polio, and its prevention through vaccination. City and district governments should mobilize all their resources to make this campaign a success," he added.

Expressing concern over detection of polio cases in six districts of Sindh, including Jacobabad, Sanghar, Ghotki and Larkana, he directed the nazims of these districts to pay special attention towards vaccination of children during the campaign and use all their resources for the purpose.

He also directed director-general, Sindh Health Services and health secretary to compile data of all vaccinated children in the province, and asked them to depute "honest, sincere and dedicated" officers in the troubled districts.

Inquiring about the problems faced by district governments in the areas where the polio cases had been detected recently, he asked them to learn from the experiences of Karachi and Hyderabad's local governments, and also use electronic media and mosques to highlight the importance of polio vaccinations.

Sindh Chief Secretary Muhammad Aslam Sanjrani said the three-day campaign was launched to create awareness among the people to get their children vaccinated, so that they could become healthy citizens.

He also exhorted the health department officials for not keeping routine records of vaccinated children and vaccination campaigns. Earlier, Sindh Health Services DG Dr H B Memon, in his briefing, informed the meeting that 19 cases of polio had been detected all over Sindh.

Deploring that some 106,100 children could not be vaccinated during the previous campaigns, he informed that during the upcoming campaign starting from July 13, over 6.176 million children would be administered polio drops.

"Around 16,815 teams comprising health officials will go door to door all over Sindh to administer polio drops," he said, and urged the district governments to cooperate in the campaign.

City Nazim Naimatullah Khan, district nazim, Hyderabad, Makhdoom Rafikuz Zaman, district nazim, Jacobabad, Ghotki, DCOs and representatives of the World Health Organization and Unicef were also present at the meeting. -PPI