KARACHI, May 1: The National Highways and Motorway Police (NH&MP) will facilitate district polio teams in the administration of Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) to the children travelling on intercity routes at toll plazas within their jurisdictions across the country on national and sub-national immunisation days.

Sources privy to the anti-polio activities in the country told Dawn that the federal health ministry had requested the NH&MP to contribute to the national polio immunisation campaign by ensuring that more and more children moving by roads from one city to another, some of whom might be the carriers of the polio virus, were administered the vaccines.

The idea was floated by health officials in response to the reports that a number of children could not be administered the vaccine during the national immunisation days or other special campaigns reportedly due to their journeys to other parts of the country.

According to sources, the travelling children who had been missed by the vaccinators during the various previously organised anti-polio drives had also played an important role in the spread of the deadly Poliomyelitis virus from one part of the country to the other, particularly in Sindh, which is currently facing a crucial phase of polio virus eradication.

On Thursday, Sindh became the only province to have reported its fifth confirmed polio case during the current year.

A study of the newly detected polio cases in Nawabshah, Hyderabad, Shikarpur, Karachi and Mirpurkhas has proved that a more efficient system is required to control the transfer of the virus through children who remain in transit during the vaccination days, said a source.

The national programme manager of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation, Dr H. B. Memon, confirming to Dawn that the NH&MP initiative would start from May 6, added that fielding of the police personnel would be of great help in the eradication of polio from the country.

He said that a large number of children travelled from Karachi to Hyderabad and other parts of the country and vice versa by road, and were largely missed by the field workers on the specified immunisation days. He said that the migration of this deadly virus from one city or province to another was also a matter of great concern.

It was further learnt that two teams of vaccinators from the respective local governments, each comprising two male and one female members, would be deputed at each of the special polio vaccination points to be developed at all the toll plazas across the country that fell under the jurisdiction of the police on the declared immunisation days.

One of the two teams will cater to the incoming traffic while another one will attend to the outgoing traffic. The NH&MP will help in the process by informing parents about the availability of these teams at a toll plaza through their briefing officers available at the toll plazas, in addition to putting relevant banners on display near the plazas.

On the National Highway in Sindh, from Ghotki to Karachi all the seven toll plazas will perform as special centres during the upcoming campaigns.