KARACHI, Feb 27: A high number of refusals and security concerns prevented government officials from achieving their polio vaccination target in parts of Landhi, sources told Dawn on Wednesday.

The campaign, according to government officials, was completed in the town on Tuesday.

“Of the total target of 10,370 children in the troubled areas of three union councils, more than 5,000 children were vaccinated on Tuesday in Gulshan-i-Buner (UC-1), Swati Mohalla (UC-3) and H Area of UC-1 on the drive’s fifth day,” said an official.The anti-polio teams, he said, could not give complete coverage of vaccination in those areas as some neighbourhoods were still inaccessible.

“The police stopped us from going into these neighbourhoods while the anti-polio teams encountered high refusals in the adjacent areas. It’s all because of the propaganda against polio vaccination by a local Urdu daily widely read in these areas,” he said, ruling out an anti-polio drive for inaccessible children anytime soon.

Overall, the government achieved 70pc target in Landhi’s three union councils focused during the current drive.

Dr Aslam Pervaiz, district officer (preventive), said the campaign was still going on in the city and would likely be completely on Thursday.

“Of the 722,908 mark target, more than 500,000 children have been vaccinated so far in the sub-national immunisation drive being conducted only in the high-risk (51) UCs of 13 towns. Work is pending in only three union councils of Orangi, SITE and Keamari towns,” he said.