ISLAMABAD: Over 21 million children will be given an extra dose of the polio vaccine in 64 districts across the country, which have been declared high-risk for the polio virus infection, in a campaign beginning from Monday.

The three-day drive will be undertaken in all districts and agencies of NWFP and Fata except Haripur, Abbottabad, Orakzai, Karak, Kurram, Hangu, North and South Waziristan; nine districts of Balochistan, 16 of Punjab, 13 districts of Sindh including all towns of Karachi and the entire Islamabad district.

The selection of the districts is based on the current poliovirus epidemiology and risk analysis by using campaign, routine EPI and AFP surveillance data, said Dr Altaf Hussain Bosan while talking to this reporter. The children targeted during the polio campaign would be given monovalent oral polio vaccine type-1 (mOPV1), he said.

Elaborate arrangements are in place in the campaign districts with a total of 52,050 vaccination teams, 9,388 area supervisors and 1,363 zonal supervisors geared up to participate in the campaign.

‘To improve quality of the campaign, we have developed a team of national and international experts who would go into these districts and monitor closely the conduct of the campaign and see if the performance was in accordance with internationally accepted standards,’ Dr Bosan said.

Though teams are raised at the local level, a great deal of material and supplies are provided to the districts by the federal government through the EPI cell in Islamabad. The cell has arranged a total of 24.5 million doses of mOPV1, finger markers, tally sheets and missed children recording forms for the campaign which have been supplied to the respective districts through provinces. Locally appropriate social mobilisation strategies will be the mainstay for the campaign which is not being held all over the country. Local media outfits would be used to inform, educate and motivate the masses as public mobilisation is the key to the success of such a campaign, Dr Bosan added.

All districts are organising meetings of district polio eradication teams for preparation, revising micro plans, contacting political, social and religious leaders for support, supplying vaccines to teams in accordance with the vaccine management standards and chalking out monitoring plans, Dr Bosan said. Social mobilisation material in the shape of posters, mosque and school flyers have been provided by the EPI cell to the districts to help in social mobilisation at the local level.

A strict system of accountability has also been instituted with zero tolerance for any lag in performance.