LAHORE: Punjab is all set to roll out a special polio eradication campaign from today (Monday), targeting 13.9 million children for vaccination against the crippling disease.

The campaign, which will be kicked off in 15 districts of the province, is being considered as a key step towards blocking local polio virus circulation.

The districts where the drive is being launched include Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Attock, Chakwal, Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar, Multan, DG Khan, Muzaffargarh, Rajanpur, Rahim Yar Khan, Sheikhupura, Okara and Gujranwala.

In Lahore, Rawlapindi and Faisalabad, the campaign will continue for seven days, while in the rest of the districts, it will be for five days only.

In all these districts, last two days of the campaign will be allocated to cover the leftover children.

As per the officials concerned, training of all teams has been wrapped up, while experts have been deployed to monitor the campaign and vaccine, as well as other logistics, which have been delivered to the districts.

In order to implement a quality campaign, Punjab polio micro-plans have been reconstituted to encompass high-risk migrant and mobile populations, they say.

The officials says that the polio teams have been directed to knock at every door to ensure vaccination of every child, including the newborns, especially in areas inhabited by the priority communities.

As per instructions issued to them, even if the previous record suggests that there is no child in a house, the teams should to knock at its door and double-check for the presence of any guest children.

They say there is a special focus on improving the capacity of polio teams by imparting quality training. “All environmental samples which have tested positive in Punjab are linked to polio virus clusters active across the border in Afghanistan and high-risk districts of Pakistan. This proves that Punjab is at the risk of polio virus importation. Therefore, the province is taking concrete steps to prevent the local circulation of virus by implementing immediate outbreak responses,” reiterates Khizer Afzaal, the head of the polio eradication programme and Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) Coordinator in Punjab.

The EOC head says Punjab has set up transit vaccination points to immunise cross-border and inter-provincial populations to prevent virus from entering the province, urging parents to cooperate with the polio teams.

He acknowledged the hard work of “resilient and brave workers who are determined to protect every child in the province from the crippling virus and together we will soon achieve the goal of eradication in Pakistan.”

Mr Afzaal underlined that multiple doses of polio drops offered the best protection against the virus and every single child needed to be vaccinated to achieve population immunity and prevent virus circulation if “we are to eradicate polio from the infected zones.”

Polio is a highly infectious disease caused by poliovirus, mainly affecting children under the age of five years. It invades the nervous system and can cause paralysis or even death. While there is no cure for polio, vaccination is the most effective way to protect children from this crippling disease.

Each time a child under the age of five is vaccinated, their protection against the virus increases. Repeated immunisation has protected millions of children from polio, allowing almost all countries in the world to become polio-free, except for Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2024