KARACHI, Oct 14: The hepatitis B vaccination campaign was formally launched in two recently carved out towns of Karachi on Sunday.

According to the Sindh government’s health department, as many as 40,000 children living in Lyari in Saddar towns of Karachi will be provided free vaccination against hepatitis B during this campaign.

Speaking at the Lyari General Hospital where he inaugurated the programme, health secretary Khalid Latif said the government had begun the campaign from one of the most poor locality of the city.

He said the disease was claiming about 1.1million people annually across the globe, and an effective defence mechanism against the disease could be developed through vaccination.

He said that parents could get their children vaccinated from various designated centres in the two towns.

In her speech, Dr Shamsunnisa Ansari, project director, Expanded Programme of Immunisation, said that hepatitis B had claimed about 8,000 lives annually in the country and added that 5.6million people in the country were the carriers of this disease.

She said the campaign had begun from Karachi’s two towns and Mirpurkhas and two more districts would be included in the programme by January next.

Those spoke on the occasion included Lyari Nazim Abdul Khaliq Jumma, Naib Nazim Malik Mohammad Khan and EDO health Dr Ali Nawaz Sheikh. Those present on the occasion included the medical superintendents of the Lyari General Hospital and Civil Hospital.