DERA ISMAIL KHAN: About 265,894 children were administered oral polio vaccine (OPV) in the district during the four-day anti-polio campaign, which peacefully concluded here on Thursday.

Talking to mediapersons, district health officer Dr Omar Shah said that the vaccination teams confronted refusal cases in campaigns, but effective strategy, including advocacy to convince parents, was adopted and these cases were gradually being addressed in a successful manner.

Answering a question, the DHO said that no untoward incident took place during the campaign.

He said that officials of the health department had been asked to provide maximum facilities to the parents so they could get polio drops administered to their children.

He said that follow-up activities were also carried out to provide polio drops to the left out children and create awareness among parents regarding usefulness of vaccination against diseases, especially polio.

Dr Shah said that elaborate arrangements were made to provide vaccines to children below five years of age to save them from the crippling disease.

He said that a total of 750 teams, including 658 mobile, were formed to administer OPV to children at their homes, bus terminals, exit and entry points and markets.

He said that all the four union councils of the district were visited by well-trained teams to vaccinate the targeted children.

As part of efforts to reach out to maximum children, the official said that door-to-door campaign was publicised to create awareness among the parents regarding the importance polio vaccination.

The DHO said that the society as a whole should shoulder the responsibility to make such anti-polio campaigns successful by ensuring that no single child was missed during the vaccination.

He said that support of the local communities was essential to achieve the objective.

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2014