LAHORE, Jan 17: The Punjab Health Department said on Thursday that 37 confirmed polio cases had been reported from 11 districts in the province so far.

Punjab Health Services Director-General Dr Yaqoob Jaffar told the health minister during a briefing that the department will observe three-day sub-national immunization days in 11 districts from Jan 22 “in order to block and eliminate the incidence of polio”.

The selected districts are: Faisalabad, Dera Ghazi Khan, Rajanpur, Muzaffargarh, Bahawalpur, Rahim Yar Khan, Lodhran, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Multan and Jhang.

Dr Jaffar said special focus would be given to the Dera Ghazi Khan, Rajanpur and Muzaffargarh districts where most polio cases were reported.

The director-general said that arrangements for the campaign had been finalized and vaccinators would go door to door to administer anti-polio vaccine to children under five years of age.

Health minister Prof Mahmood Ahmad Chaudhry directed that EDOs (health) and members of the district monitoring teams should also be activated to ensure the success of the vaccination campaign.

Pakistan could not fulfil its international commitment to completely eradicate polio by the end of 2001.

More than 60 polio cases were reported in the Dera Ghazi Khan division alone till Nov 11, 2001.

The figure only included numbers of patients who were brought to the state-run health facilities. The cases handled by private medical practitioners, general practitioners, quacks and other traditional healers could not counted owing to absence of surveillance system.

There are around 100 state-run health facilities in Dera Ghazi Khan division. Survey reports of the project wing of the health department revealed that the state-run health facilities hardly provide one-fourth of the total health coverage in the Punjab.

Punjab Health Minister Prof Dr Mahmood Chaudhry had said that the private sector had been catering to the needs of 65 per cent patients in the province. — Reporter