LAHORE, June 25: The health department is working on a strategy to bring polio at the zero level in Punjab during the current year.

This was stated by Special Assistant to Chief Minister on Health Khwaja Salman Rafique while administering anti-polio drops to gypsy children near Babu Sabu Interchange to inaugurate Short Interval Additional Doze Strategy Activity for Polio Eradication on Monday.

He said all district coordination officers had been given a task of strict monitoring of anti-polio campaign in their respective districts, whereas the chief secretary was monitoring the situation at the provincial level. Lahore DCO Noorul Ameen Mengal, Health EDO Dr Inamul Haq and other senior officers of the department were also present on this occasion.

The special assistant said the campaign would continue from June 26 to 28 in 41 sensitive union councils of five towns during which more than 400,000 children up to five years of age would be administered anti-polio drops for which 1,200 mobile teams had been constituted. He said only three countries in the world were still affected by polio virus and unfortunately Pakistan was one of them. He said the government had adopted zero-tolerance policy to eradicate polio from the province, and all the departments concerned as well as the officials had been categorically told that no laxity or slackness would be tolerated in this regard.

On the occasion, Dr Inamul Haq said the additional dose of polio vaccine was being administered in 41 UCs of Gulberg, Data Gunj Bakhsh, Samanabad, Ravi and Allama Iqbal towns. The sewerage and environmental sample from these union councils proved that the polio virus was circulating in these areas.