ISLAMABAD: Health Minister Abdul Qadir Patel has appealed to parents to ensure that their children of less than five years are administered polio vaccination drops

According to a statement, he said that the campaign, which has been started in Sindh and Punjab in first phase, would continue till March 17.

The five-day vaccination campaign is being held in two phases due to the concurring activities of the seventh national census. In the first phase, over 17.41 million children under the age of five in 13 districts of Punjab and 16 districts of Sindh and Islamabad are being vaccinated from March 13 to March 17.

The second phase will start from April 3 to 7 to vaccinate more than 4.12 million children in 12 districts of Balochistan and 26 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including the seven districts in the southern region of the province.

Mr Patel has urged parents and caregivers to ensure that their children receive the life-saving polio vaccine so that they remain protected from poliovirus, which has been found circulating in environmental samples.

No human case of polio has been reported in Pakistan since September 2022 when a polio outbreak paralysed 20 children – all of them in southern KP districts.

Poliovirus was detected for the first time this year in sewage samples collected from two separate sites in Lahore in January. Two more samples have since then tested positive for polio in D.I. Khan and Ghotki.

The polio programme has taken all out efforts to ensure vaccination of children to keep them safe from this highly infectious disease in the context of positive environmental samples detected in some places.

The Sehat Tahhafuz Helpline 1166 and 24/7 WhatsApp Helpline 0346-777-65-46 is available to assist parents and caregivers in reporting missed children and providing related information.

Polio is a highly infectious disease caused by poliovirus mainly affecting children under the age of five years.

Published in Dawn, March 16th, 2023