PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has decided to start vaccinating two million children in five central districts in a single day as part of ‘Sehat Ka Insaf’ initiative started in Peshawar last month.

Initially the campaign was planned to begin after completion of 12 rounds in Peshawar but the decision was taken in view of the demands of the central districts which along with the provincial capital are high-risk areas, officials said.

The single-day campaign has completed six rounds in Peshawar. On April 6, children in the target districts would be given vaccine for nine childhood diseases including polio, they said.

The final three rounds of SKI initially planned for April only in Peshawar would target 754,000 children in Peshawar, 348,000 in Mardan, 243,000 in Nowshera, 240,000 in Charsadda and 257,000 children Swabi in a single day against nine vaccine preventable diseases, they said. Two million children will be immunised in a single day with free medical camps, mass scale health education activities on pattern of Peshawar.

Like Peshawar, the central districts also received a large number of transit population of other areas, officials said.

Like Peshawar, these districts had been recording more refusals besides missing kids as compared to the past year, officials said.

There were requests from these districts because the local authorities were not finding workers to administer drops to children in view of killing of policemen and vaccinators in polio-related incidents in Mardan, Swabi and Charsadda, officials said.

“The campaign has gained national and international acknowledgement and is billed as an integrated move to cope with the biggest ever health problem of polio in the province,” health officials in Mardan, which recorded 5,000 refusals in previous immunisation campaigns, told Dawn.

According to them, the decision was announced by PTI chairman Imran Khan in a meeting with WHO global chief Dr Margrate Chan, officials said.

Officials said that Dr Chan expressed satisfaction over success of the SKI in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that was launched due to endless spree of attacks on polio teams and said that vaccination of children was only to protect children from getting crippledImran Khan assured that the KP government and PTI were willing to offer all types of technical assistance and guidance to all the provinces and pointed out that the model had been adopted by Sindh province.

In the first attack on a polio team, three persons were killed in Charsadda in 2012 and it continued continued to hamper vaccination drives.

Similar pattern of security in other districts would also be adopted, they said.

The role of police is highly significant in the campaigns so far as there was no incident in past six weeks in Peshawar.

PTI volunteers have been mobilised in the districts to run the campaign in collaboration with the health department.