QUETTA: The coordinator of the Emergency Operation Centre (EOC), Balochistan, Rashid Razzaq, said on Sunday that a four-day vaccination campaign against poliovirus would begin in all 33 districts of the province on Monday (today).

The campaign would jointly be launched by the government of Balochistan and the Emergency Operation Centre. During the campaign more than 2.5 million children below the age of five years would be administered polio drops.

Mr Razzaq said all preparations had been made for the campaign, adding that 10,585 teams of vaccinators would take part in it. There would be at least 8,988 mobile teams whose members would go door-to-door to administer polio drops to children. Around 941 teams of vaccinators would be deployed at camps in cities and towns and 594 teams would be deployed at the province’s borders.

He said adequate security arrangements had been made for the vaccinators. Personnel of police, Levies force and Frontier Corps (FC) would be deployed to protect the polio workers. Religious leaders would help the vaccinators in persuading parents to get their children vaccinated, he added.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are only the two endemic countries where polio cases are still detected.

Mr Razzaq said efforts of frontline workers in the fight against polio were admirable.

In Chagai, arrangements have been made for the four-day vaccination campaign.

Chagai is the largest district of the country by area and it shares Pakistan’s borders with both Iran and Afghanistan.

Chagai Deputy Commissioner Agha Sher Zaman along with District Health Officer Dr Abdul Ghani Baloch and other officials inaugurated the anti-polio campaign by administering polio drops to children during a ceremony held at Prince Fahad Hospital in Dalbandin.

Published in Dawn, September 21st, 2020