PESHAWAR, May 6: About 97 per cent of children under the age of five were given polio drops during the anti-polio campaign of the National Immunisation Days (NIDs) in the NWFP and Federally-Administered Tribal Areas.

According to the report compiled by the NWFP health department, the three-day campaign, launched on April 24, targeted 5.6 million children across the province.

In the NWFP and Fata, 15,948 trained teams moved house-to-house to vaccinate children. The teams included lady health workers, members of the district health teams and trained volunteers, and their work was monitored by supervisors.

At the district and agency level, local influential people, DCOs, nazims, and religious leaders inaugurated the campaign and remained engaged in the activities.

Media had also been fully supportive and hosted a briefing at the Peshawar Press Club prior to the campaign, the report said.

While majority of the children had been covered, the ones being missed (3 per cent) were due to lack of awareness among parents and non-availability of children at the time of visits of the vaccination teams. Sleeping children and newborns were often not brought for vaccination.

Refusal by families due to misconceptions was another reason that one per cent of the children were not vaccinated.

Vaccinating children in the hard areas was a challenge.