KARACHI, Sept 27: Over six million children below fives years of age including some two million children in Karachi alone will be administered oral monovalent polio vaccines during an anti-polio campaign that started from Tuesday.

Dr Khadim Hussein Lakhiar, Project Director of the Expanded Programme on Immunization – Sindh, talking to APP on the phone from Mirpurkhas on Monday, said that these campaigns were urgently required as the polio virus still persisted.

He said until the entire country attained zero polio prevalence and maintained the status for three consecutive years, the task of absolute polio eradication could not be ensured.

Mr Lakhiar is accompanying the provincial minister, who formally inaugurated the immunization campaign by administering anti-polio drops to children at Government Hospital Mirpurkhas on Monday.

Dr Mohammad Azmoudeh when approached by the APP informed that kids were being given monovalent category of the oral anti-polio vaccine with the support of GAVI.

Elaborating the same, he mentioned that the vaccine contained only P-One strain, as other strains had been established to be non-existent in the country.

“This shows that Pakistan is in the last leg of polio eradication and an extremely cautious approach is required to ensure that all kids till five are administered vaccine without failure,” he stressed.

He appealed to parents to particularly include neonates in the campaign in the backdrop of the misunderstanding that since they were getting these as part of the scheduled vaccines hence they did not need them during special campaigns.

“The low prevalence level of the virus requires to be taken due care of as chances of children getting inflicted with polio continue to exist,” he said.

Dr Khadim Hussein Lakhiar also urged parents to see that their kids were not deprived of routine immunization against diseases preventable through vaccination.

“This is extremely essential as there are instances when countries despite attaining polio eradication status registered re-emergence of polio due to poor routine immunization.”

It was mentioned that eight million doses were available for Sindh for the special immunization campaign.—APP