Anti-Polio Drive Starts in Sindh Except Karachi

KARACHI- Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for Polio in Sindh has launched in all districts of Sindh province except Karachi and will end on Feb 15.

Approximately 6.3 million children would be administrated polio drops while 44,000 polio teams will take part in four-day campaign.

The campaign in Karachi would start from February 19 and will continue till February 23rd, and approximately 2.3 million children under five-year age would be vaccinated in the upcoming drive.

Around 12000 teams will take part in the campaign in the city and 5,000 police personnel will be deployed to provide security to teams.

A total cases count for polio in 2017 was eight in Pakistan out of which two cases were reported from Karachi, Sindh. This is a historical low for the country and the province as there have been zero cases so far in 2018.

Coordinator, EOC, Sindh, Fayaz Jatoi said that “We are in a good position to eradicate polio, the environment samples in northern Sindh are negative and have also started clearing up in Karachi.  We have come a long way to achieve historically low cases but more work need to be done and we must improve further”, he added.

He said teams must continue their hard work and parent must come forward to vaccinate their children to save them from the scourge of polio. No child should suffer from a vaccine preventable disease and it is our collective responsibility to make sure all children are vaccinated so we have a healthy future for our generation.