Polio campaign begins in Karachi today

KARACHI: A week-long polio campaign has initiated across the port city on Monday (today).

According to officials, the campaign is a part of the National Immunisation Days (NID), which aims to target 2.3 million children aged less than five years in the city’s 192 union councils.

Over 13,000 polio teams are tasked with immunising children of the entire city. While, city commissioner Iftikhar Shawllani would inaugurate the campaign.

Moreover, first polio eradication drive of 2019 has also kicked off in Punjab from today.

As many as 19 million children ageing between 1 to 5 years will be administered anti-polio drops till January 25 in Punjab.

Few days earlier, Babar Bin Atta, the focal person to prime minister on polio, confirmed that a 16 months old baby girl was infected with the polio virus in the Lakki Marwat area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).  He said that total nine polio cases were reported in different areas of the country  in 2018.

Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has lauded the efforts of Pakistan for polio eradication.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that Pakistan would soon become a polio free state though joint efforts and expressed satisfaction over the measures and reforms taken by the government.