QUETTA: A three-day polio campaign was launched on Monday in Balochistan amid tight security to administer vaccines to children under five years’ of age.

Six new polio cases were reported during the last three months from Quetta and Qila Abdullah districts, officials of the World Health Organisation (WHO) said adding three each children from two the provinces had been crippled.

The polio campaign will administer vaccines to 8,67,898 children in Quetta, Pishin, Qila Abdullah, Zhob, Sherani and Lasbela districts. However, only Hub tehsil had been chosen in Lasbela district.

“The Quetta zone - comprising Quetta Pishin and Qila Abdullah, falls in highly-risked area where six children so far are reported to have been crippled by polio,” official sources said.

The Extended Programme on Immunisation (EPI) had set up 1,831 teams with 232 teams to be deployed at fixed sites, 91 at transit routes, 130 in union councils and 732 as area in-charges.

It was further reported that several thousands of refusal cases had been reported in Quetta zone. Parents and guardians refusing polio drops to their children claim it to be a conspiracy of the West against Muslims to control their population growth.

Unicef and EPI officials said that parents who had previously refused administering polio drops to their wards were now more than cooperative, especially after the emergence of polio cases from Quetta and Qila Abdullah districts.

Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2014