ISLAMABAD, May 9: A three-day anti-polio campaign was launched in 49 high-risk districts of the country on Tuesday. Talking about the campaign at a press conference here, federal Health Minister Mohammad Nasir Khan said 60,033 teams had been constituted for the campaign, which would work in 10 district of Punjab, 16 of Balochistan, 14 of NWFP and nine district of Sindh,

He said the anti-polio campaign was only being conducted in those ‘high-risk districts’ where the chance of children being crippled by polio was greatest.

For this reason, he said, it was vital that all children under the age of five were vaccinated in every round. During the campaign, anti-polio drops will be given to about 16.5 million children.

The minister said Pakistan had made remarkable progress in eliminating polio from the country with the number of cases coming down from 199 in 2000 to 28 in 2005. And two cases have so far been reported in 2006, one each from Killa Abdullah and Dera Ismail Khan.

—Staff Reporter