LAHORE, March 8: The three-day anti-polio vaccination campaign has failed to cover all children in the Punjab.

Various parts of the city —- Canal View Co-operative Housing Society, Johar Town, Faisal Town, Samanabad, Shadbagh, Singhpura, Kachupura, parts of the cantonment and some other areas —- remained uncovered during the campaign. Reports suggested that the campaign could not meet its targets in the other parts of the province.

When contacted, Punjab Director-General Health Services Dr Yaqoob Jaffar admitted that the mobile vaccination teams could not touch many areas. He said the WHO surveillance teams as well as district monitoring teams were independently evaluating the vaccination coverage.

Following preliminary reports of the three-day campaign from March 5-7, Dr Jaffar said the health department had extended the campaign for two days to cover the remaining children. The vaccination campaign would continue on Saturday (today).

Dr Jaffar said the Punjab Governor had this time issued strict directions to ensure cent per cent vaccination coverage in the province. He said the governor himself was monitoring the vaccination campaign.

He said district Nazims, union council counsellors and EDOs (health) were also assigned responsibilities to monitor and ensure cent per cent vaccination coverage.

Dr Jaffar said the mobiles teams were again directed to reach the remaining areas and administer anti-polio drops to children. He, however, said that people should also cooperate with the department in its national cause and get their children vaccinated at 3,498 static vaccination centres established in respective teaching hospitals, district and tehsil headquarters hospitals, rural health centres and basic health units.

It may be mentioned that the health department had constituted 33,650 mobile teams and established 3,498 static vaccination centres to cover around 13.9 million children under five years of age.

It was learnt that 105 polio cases were detected from all over the country including around 40 polio cases from 11 districts in the province last year. Most of polio cases were reported from D.G. Khan, Leiah, Rajanpur and Muzaffargarh districts. In order to block and eliminate polio, the health department had this time focussed the affected areas.

The governor had also constituted a four-member task force headed by his wife to monitor the coverage of Expanded Programme of Immunization in the province.

Health minister Prof Mahmood Ahmad Chaudhry, health secretary Hasan Waseem Afzal and DG Health Services Dr Yaqoob Jaffar were the other three members of the task force.

The governor had assigned the task force to ensure cent per cent Extended Programme of Immunization (EPI) coverage against six diseases including polio in the province. The task force had also been asked to monitor the coverage of Hepatitis-B vaccination currently being extended to different districts. The Hepatitis-B vaccination was expected to be extended all over the province by July this year.