ISLAMABAD, March 2: Aiming to achieve historic success by total eradication of polio from Pakistan, the government is intensifying schedule of supplementary immunisation activities to include four rounds of National Immunisation Days (NIDs) and four sub-national activities in 2008.

The next campaign will commence from March 4.

This was stated by the Extended Programme of Immunisation (EPI) manager, H.B. Memon, as he briefed the media persons here at an event organised by the United Nations Children Fund (Unicef). The strategy works in Pakistan, still one of the four countries globally that are still polio endemic, Mr Memon said.

He said: “Before initiation of the programme the number of cases of polio was estimated to be about 25,000 to 30,000 a year. Some 230,000 children were saved from paralysis after NIDs were introduced in 1994. The number of cases dropped to 1,147 in 1997, 40 cases in 2006, 32 in 2007 and only two in 2008 (Nawabshah and Hyderabad).”

Informing about the upcoming sub-national campaign, a total of 16.79 million children under five years of age would be targeted in 54 districts of the country.

A total of 43,033 vaccination teams, 7,922 area supervisors and 1,296 zonal supervisors would participate in the campaign. The campaign activities will also be monitored by more than 500 national monitors.

Stressing on increasing geographical restriction of wild polio virus, the EPI representative said the majority of districts had been polio free for almost two years. Sixty per cent of the cases in 2006 were from six districts only.

There had been no cases from the Federally Administered Northern Areas (Fana) since 1998, Azad Jammu and Kashmir since 2000 or Islamabad since 2003.

The vast majority of population, in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, lived in polio free areas, as wild polio virus transmission is currently focal in two main areas — NWFP/Fata and neighbouring parts of eastern Afghanistan.

Highly populous areas of the country, including central and northern Punjab, have not had a case for more than two years. Punjab with a population of 90 million had only two cases in 2006 and was without a case of polio for 13 months until September 2007, when there was one case in the known transmission zone in the south.

“There is no reason our children should be affected by vaccine preventable diseases such polio and measles,” he said, adding that Pakistan had the capacity, opportunity and the will to prevent these dangerous diseases.

Concerted efforts were urgently needed from all levels to overcome the remaining challenges which stood in the way of eradicating polio, Mr Memon said.

Globally, after 19-year effort, involving more than two hundred countries, there are only four countries in the world which have yet to eliminate polio. The number of cases has been reduced from 350,000 every year down to just 1,083 cases in 2007.