Anti-polio drive to be kicked off soon

F.P. Report

PESHAWAR: The three-day special anti-polio drive will be kicked off in eight districts of the province from January 13, 2020 wherein more than 2.1 million children under five will be administered oral polio vaccine (OPV).

This was decided in a high- level meeting held here Friday at Emergency Operations Center Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with coordinator EOC Abdul Basit in the chair.

Director EPI Dr Saleem, Team lead N Stops Dr Ijaz, Technical Focal Person Dr Nadeem Jan, and team leads of partner staff were also present on the occasion. The meeting reviewed the readiness status of the upcoming campaign and expressed satisfaction over preparations.

It was told that the case response campaign will be conducted in eight districts of the province including Charsadda, Nowshera, Mardan, Swabi, Mohmand, Malakand, Swat and Buner to vaccination 2.14 million children.

A total of 7800 teams have been constituted out of which 6915 are mobile teams, 515 fixed teams, 318 transit and 52 roaming teams while 1790 area in charges have been deployed to monitor and ensure quality of the campaign.

Speaking on the occasion, Coordinator EOC Abdul Basit said that every measure should be taken to ensure conducive working environment to the teams with ample security and logistic arrangements.

He directed the staff to ensure quality of the campaign and ensure immunization of the target children so as to protect children guts from polio besides stopping virus circulation in the environment.