KARACHI, April 24: The 68th round of polio oral vaccine administration got underway on Tuesday as a part of the ‘National Immunisation Days’ in the city and other parts of the province.

As per the micro plan for the latest round, about 6.529 million children under five years of age are to be immunised in three days.

As many as 511 centres have been set up in different towns of Karachi in addition to 5,045 mobile and 272 transit teams having been activated for vaccination of 2.2 million children in the city.

The highest number of target population, i.e. 181,819, lives in Orangi Town followed by Saddar Town (172,233), Landhi Town (155,537), Jamshed Town (155,342) and Gulshan-i-Iqbal (154,194).

It is said that about Rs7 million is spent under the head of operational cost for every national polio immunisation campaign in the province, in addition to Rs500,000 on orientation of the vaccination teams and Rs1 million rupees for social mobilisation.

While claiming that Sindh province is all poised to eradicate the polio virus circulation during the year, an immunisation official said that all measures were being taken to check the infiltration of the virus.