A five-day polio vaccination campaign is underway, aiming to administer the drops to 16.5 million children under the age of five.
The polio campaign will be conducted in 36 districts and 30 sub-districts including Islamabad, 23 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 20 districts of Balochistan, 16 districts of Sindh and 6 districts of Punjab.
Internet services have been suspended in the border town of Chaman, Balochistan, due to security concerns. Tight security arrangements have been made in all the three unions where additional police force has been deployed for the security of polio groups, officials said. Yesterday, protest organizers tried to disrupt the campaign.
The Prime Minister’s National Health Coordinator, Dr. Malik Mukhtar, urged parents to ensure that their children are vaccinated against polio. Dr Malik Mukhtar said four children had been exposed to the polio virus this year, and the detection of the virus in waste samples indicated that the children were at risk. He said the government launched a campaign before Eid to prevent the spread of the virus through humans and protect more children from exposure.
