PESHAWAR, Sept 23: NWFP Health Minister Inayatullah Khan on Friday said that the government in collaboration with donor agencies was striving hard to eliminate polio from the province. Briefing reporters about the three-day anti-polio campaign to be started from Sept 27, he said more than 5.56 million children would be administered polio drops during the campaign in the province, tribal areas and refugee camps.

The minister said that ulema, teachers and students would also be involved to make the campaign a success. “This year only three cases of polio were reported, while the last year the number was eight.”

He asked people to get their children vaccinated against polio. He pledged that the government would continue its anti-polio efforts till eradication of its virus.

He said the campaign would cost Rs20 million, adding that WHO was supporting the programme, Unicef was mobilizing the masses and the provincial government was providing human resources to carry out the campaign.

He said 14 other international donor organizations were also taking part in the campaign.

WHO representative Dr Abraham in his speech on the occasion expressed the hope that polio would soon be eradicated from the NWFP and other parts of the country.

He said a surveillance system had been put in place to detect new cases of polio.

However, Dr Abraham conceded that they had been facing an uphill task to reach children in inaccessible areas due to which five per cent of children were missed in every drive.

Unicef programme officer Dr Abdul Jamil said that polio was a vaccine-preventable disease and asked people to immunize their children to save them from the crippling disease.