RAWALPINDI: The district administration has postponed the anti-polio drive in the district for a week for security reasons, and now it will be held from March 6.

District Health Authority (DHA) Chief Executive Officer Dr. Fayyaz Butt told Dawn that the five-day anti-polio drive scheduled to be held on February 27 was postponed after the Rawalpindi police intimated their inability to spare policemen to accompany the polio teams.

They said they were busy in security duty next week. “Besides the death anniversary of Mumtaz Qadri, there is security high alert in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad and the policemen have been deployed at different sensitive installations,” he said.

He said after getting information, DHA wrote a letter to Punjab health department and sought its permission to postpone the drive for a week. He said that the drive will start from March 6.

He said that mobile teams had been formed to vaccinate more than 829,000 children in the district.

Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2017