QUETTA: More than 2.5 million children under the age of five will be administered drops during a three-day anti-polio campaign to be launched across Balochistan on Monday (today).

Balochistan Emergency Operation Centre Coordinator Syed Faisal Ahmed said here on Sunday that vitamin-A drops would also be given to the children.

“All arrangements have been finalised and 10,321 teams would vaccinate children under the age of five,” he said, adding that about 8,806 mobile, 939 fixed and 576 transit teams had been deployed across the province to ensure that all children were administered polio drops.

“Security arrangements for the anti-polio drive have been finalised throughout the province as Frontier Corps, police and Levies personnel are taking part in providing security to the polio staff,” Mr Ahmed said, adding that religious scholars were also involved in the campaign to persuade the parents who normally refuse to get their children vaccinated.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are the two endemic countries still having polio cases.

Four new polio cases have so far been reported in Pakistan this year — three of them in Balochistan’s Dukki district.

“It’s admirable that with the efforts of our frontline workers, no case of polio has been reported in the high-risk districts of Quetta, Pishin and Qila Abdullah. Yet we have to strive more to stop circulation of the virus and save our children,” Mr Ahmed said.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2018