KARACHI: The provincial health authorities on Sunday ‘successfully’, yet partly, accomplished their task to vaccinate around 500,000 children against polio in sensitive parts of the city with an unprecedented security cover in place for the special campaign, officials said.

The campaign was aimed at inoculating children up to five years of age who had missed out in earlier campaigns because of security fears, they added.

However, things did not go according to the plan envisaged because security cover was not available for five of the 24 ‘highly sensitive’ union councils (UCs).

Officials said three UCs in Bin Qasim and two in Landhi had not been covered because of lack of proper preparedness on the part of the police.

During a visit to various neighbourhoods, provincial secretary health Iqbal Durrani said the areas left would be covered on Monday.

“We’ll cover it on Monday with the same security plan as we have applied in the 19 UCs today,” he told journalists.

The police squads accompanied hundreds of teams in each UC cealed off areas where children were being inoculated. The authorities had already banned pillion riding on motorcycles in those areas.

Officials in the expanded programme on immunisation (EPI) Sindh said the campaign remained peaceful in all targeted areas and they received no report of any untoward incident.

“It remained completely peaceful,” said Dr Durre Naz Jamal, deputy chief of the EPI Sindh. Officials in the most volatile Gadap Town said they completely covered UCs 5 and 8.

However, two of the five zones of UC-4 could not be covered as they deferred it because of the fading daylight.

“We’ll cover it on Tuesday and Wednesday when we are scheduled to cover UC- 6 and 7 of our town,” said Dr Shakoor Abbasi, the town health officer.

Unlike a previous schedule, the health authorities have made up a new plan to effectively cover the metropolis because of its security dynamics. The plan is based on sensitiveness of the areas and availability of security personnel.

According to the plan, a two-day campaign will begin on Tuesday in 25 UCs. They are: Gadap UC-6 and 7, Baldia UC-5, 6, 7, 8, Orangi UC 3, 4, 5, 7, 12, SITE UC 4, 5, 6, Gulshan UC 4, 7, 8, Landhi UC 3, 4, 5, Korangi UC 1, 2, 6 and Bin Qasim UC 1 and 5.

Another two-day campaign will commence on Feb 27 in 24 UCs. They are: Saddar UC 1, 4, 11, Lyari UC 6, 7, North Karachi UC 4, 9, 11, Gulberg UC 1 and 6, North Nazimabad UC 2, 7, Liaquatabad UC 9, 10, 11, Malir UC 6, 7, Jamshed Town UC 11, Shah Faisal UC1, Landhi UC Awami Colony and Keamari UC 1, 2, 5 and 7.

Then another one-day campaign will be commenced next Sunday in the same UCs as were planned this Sunday which included Gadap, Gulshan, Baldia, Orangi, SITE, Bin Qasim, Landhi, Saddar and Gulberg.

The national immunisation days (NIDs) will kick-start on March 4 and continue for the next four days.

The special campaigns with better security cover had been launched after officials warned that the current year was a difficult one for Karachi vis-à-vis incidence of polio because of complexities they faced in ensuring provision of security cover to thousands of vaccinators.

Some 10 polio cases had been reported in Sindh — eight of them only in Karachi — last year, which was much more than four cases reported in 2012.

Given the fact that Karachi had been a polio-free city in 2012, the emergence of eight cases had alarmed the authorities who planned tougher measures for 2014 to curb the crippling disease this year.

The foremost among the measures was to increase the frequency of polio drives from one in two or three months to every month.

However, the authorities faced early problems immediately after the commencement of the year’s first campaign in January — the dangerous of all was an attack on polio team in Qayyumabad, which killed three vaccinators.

Since the attack was reported from an area traditionally considered a ‘safer’ neighbourhood by the authorities, the murders generated a wave of terror among volunteers who, first refused to continue the campaign, and after persuasion demanded security for every team during the campaign.

Although, the sources said the first campaign could not completely cover all the city’s children, officials, however, claimed they had accomplished the task in numerous short intervals.

The campaign this month for the city’s 40 ‘sensitive’ union councils (UCs) was to start from the beginning of this week, which too was postponed because of unavailability of the required security cover.

The officials are perturbed over loss of invaluable time because of security hiccups, which may lead to a difficult year ahead for the city’s children.

They said winter months were ideal for multiple polio campaigning, which helped improving immunity among children against polio and making the rest of the year safer as it was being done elsewhere in Sindh.

They said the ongoing months were colder, which allowed children to have better immunity if they got boosters against polio. This immunity could help a child in defeating polio in summer as well, the officials said.

They said a total of 2,147,845 children under five required to be administered polio drops by 7,832 polio workers in Karachi.