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| January 25, 2006 | Wednesday | Zilhaj 24, 1426 |
Countrywide anti-polio campaign starts
ISLAMABAD, Jan 24: A three-day national polio immunization campaign started in the federal capital and other parts of the country on Tuesday. The capital administration has constituted over 200 mobile vaccination teams to administer anti-polio drops to children under the age of five in a door-to-door campaign.
Twenty-four immunization points have also been set up at rural health centres in the capital territory.
According to the health department, more than 50,000 children would be administered polio vaccine in the rural areas.
Meanwhile, sources said 75,000 mobile teams had been formed nationwide by the health ministry and provincial governments to immunize over 32 million children against polio.
About 150,000 workers will visit door-to-door to administer anti-polio drops to the children.
Only 24 cases of polio have been detected in 17 districts of the country till December last.—APP
Dawn’s Taxila correspondent adds: Deputy District Health Officer Dr Azhar Hussain Abadi launched the anti- polio drive in Taxila by administering vaccine to a child at the Tehsil Headquarters hospital here.
Dr Abadi said owing to implementation of an effective strategy, no polio case had been detected in the entire Rawalpindi district during the last couple of years.
He said under the Expanded Programme for Immunization (EPI), the health authorities had set a target of 71,950 children under the age of five to be immunized against polio in rural and urban areas of Taxila and Wah Cantonment.
The two cities have been divided in four zones where 125 EPI teams would visit door-to-door to administer anti-polio drops. Vaccine would also be administrated at 20 fixed points and 13 public places.
The DDHO said influx of the quake affected people into the urban areas had multiplied the importance of the immunization campaign.
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