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Published 18 Apr, 2014 07:02am

Anti-polio drive ends peacefully

LANDI KOTAL: The three-day anti-polio campaign went past peacefully with officials claiming to have achieved 85 per cent of the target.

Health officials said that they were able to cover almost the entire Landi Kotal sub-division which included the far-off localities like Bazaar Zakhakhel, Brag, Alacha, Karamna and Loe Shalman.

The campaign in Jamrud was also successful to a great extant as health teams were able to conduct door-to-door campaign in areas like Ghundi, Gharheeza, Wazir Dhand, Shah Kas, Sur Kamar, Qadam, Jabba and Teddi Bazaar.

“We had to postpone our campaign in Chapari and Tabai localities owing to the sensitive nature of the area and also the security forces did not give us security clearance,” agency surgeon Dr Rehman Afridi told Dawn.

He said that his department was working on a different strategy to penetrate sensitive areas in order to achieve 100 per cent results. He said that in Bara sub-division, health teams conducted door-to-door campaign in soft areas like Kalakhel and Bar Qambarkhel, where they had not faced any resistance in the past.

“We have problems in sending our teams to Gud Malang, Speen Qabar, Alamgudar, Al-Haaj Market, Fort Salop and Meel Wat areas as security forces too were reluctant to give clearance,” he said and added that they avoided conducting the vaccination campaign on fixed dates.

He said that health teams were dispatched to areas left out in the specified days whenever they were given security clearance by the forces. —Correspondent

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