RAWALPINDI, April 9: Three-day polio vaccination campaign will be launched from April 16 to vaccinate 5,60,780 children below the age of five years in Rawalpindi district. Vitamin A supplement will also be given to the children.

The Civil Defence volunteers and boy scouts will also be engaged in the campaign for the first time. Rawalpindi district was the first to give up the practice of hiring manpower from private sector and utilize the workforce of government departments.

The current decision has been taken to meet the shortage of manpower.

This practice has helped save a large amount spent on hiring of manpower from private sector. Besides the people deputed from public sector are subject to accountability.

The district has been divided into nine sectors for the campaign. Rawalpindi Tehsil has been divided into city, cantonment and rural areas.

The other two zones are in Wah and Taxila and one each in Kahuta, Gujar Khan, Murree and Kotli Sattian.

The nine sectors have been further sub-divided into 32 zones.

The vaccination task in these sectors will be accomplished by 1,408 teams each comprising two members.

A total of 2,816 volunteers have been engaged in the task. Of the 1,408 vaccination teams 1,178 will be mobile, 173 at health facilities and 54 at public places.

The official hierarchy of the vaccination teams will be 202 area in charges, 32 zonal and 4 tehsil supervisors.

Logistics made available for the campaign are 367 motorcycles and 40 vehicles.

Rawalpindi district has been identified as one of the high risk areas due to high population density, rapid growth in population particularly due to migration of people from adjoining rural areas and presence of a large number of Afghan refugees.

The third party assessment of the previous campaign held after last NID campaign by Gallup Pakistan revealed very positive results and only 12 missing cases were identified.

In January the district covered record 97 per cent, while the previous coverage was around 80 per cent.