SWABI: Senior officials of the district administration here on Friday supervised the door-to-door anti-polio campaign in the mountainous region of Malikabad where refusal cases and militant attacks were reported in the past.

It was a rare occasion that Swabi deputy commissioner Salman Lodhi, district police officer Khalid Hamdani and health officials visited the houses along with the vaccination teams and administered polio drops to the children. There are about 750 houses in the area with over 1,300 children under five years of age.

The officials recalled that the doo-to-door campaign was once conducted with the help of Pakistan Army in 2013 and since 2015 the campaign was usually conducted in a hujra (common guest house) where the people would bring their children for vaccination. As many as 11 polio teams along with supervisors, district health officer Dr Mohammad Niaz and police personnel conducted the campaign, which was personally supervised by the district administration officials.

The local people lauded the officials’ participation in the campaign and vowed that they would continue to cooperate with the vaccination staff to protect their children from the crippling disease. The health officials said that they had a complete date of children and efforts would be made that none of them was missed in the anti-polio campaign.

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2019