MULTAN, March 4: The WHO coordinator for anti-polio campaign, Pervez Masood, has said polio cases are found only in Pakistan, India and Nigeria. He was speaking at a meeting held at the committee room of the DCO office on Thursday to finalize arrangements for the anti-polio campaign to be launched from March 8.

"We have to launch the campaign as a national duty in order to be deleted from the list of countries having polio incidence," he added. Mr Masood, who is the former Punjab chief secretary, said it was a matter of concern that there were only 11 polio cases in the country in 2002, but now they had increased to 24. He said two polio cases were detected in Gardezpur village of Shujaabad.

District Nazim Riaz Husain Qureshi said there were some areas in the district where no polio vaccination team had reached. He urged the campaigners to publicize the permanent immunization centres so that people could visit those even after the special immunization days.

WHO consultant Dr Ahmad Dervesh pointed out that the polio virus was more prevalent in Muzaffargarh whereas Multan, beinga neighbour, could also be affected. The meeting was informed that 643,000 children, less than five years, would be immunized against polio here during the campaign.