RAWALPINDI: The District Health Authority is all set to start the last anti-polio drive of 2024 from Monday (today) during which more than one million children below the age of five years in the district wil l be vaccinated.

Sub-National Immunisation Drive against polio in Rawalpindi district will be a seven-day campaign, including two days allocated to reach the missed children.

A total of 1.57 million children under five years of age will be reached during the campaign in the district in an effort to save them from disability.

Despite significant progress, the threat of the spread of poliovirus from regions still affected by the disease remains a major concern.

Over 4,210 polio teams will go door-to-door to administer polio drops to children under the age of five. A total of 270 supervisors will also perform their duties in 212 union councils of Rawalpindi, while partner staff from WHO and Unicef will also supervise.

To facilitate effective execution, the Provincial Emergency Operations Centre has deployed experts to assist in preparedness and ensure the smooth implementation of the campaign.

Punjab has faced challenges, including one confirmed polio case and 75 environmental samples testing positive, with a 22pc positivity rate. Genetic analysis of the virus has shown both local and imported strains circulating.

Deputy Commissioner Dr Hassan Waqar Cheema said the district administration was determined to make the region poliofree.

He said the District Health Authority would give top priority to eradication of polio, review the anti-poliocampaign and ensure that the policy given by the World Health Organisation was ensured.

He said the monitoring tier had been strengthened to improve the quality of the campaign through which the third party validation of the anti-poliocampaign was conducted.

District Health Authority Chief Executive Officer Asif Arbab Niazi said we were trying to meet the target of administering anti-polio drops to more than one million children.

“We appeal to people to cooperate with our teams and ensure that children are vaccinated against polio so that Pakistan can be free from this deadly disease,” he added.

Mr Niazi said there was a fear of the spread of poliovirus due to mobile population in Punjab. Lahore and Rawalpindi have the largest number of migrants who are being registered and special points have been made to immunise them.

Published in Dawn, December 16th, 2024