PHOTO: FILE
RAWALPINDI: The Health Ministry will run monthly polio campaigns in 11 districts of the country including Rawalpindi.
This decision comes in light of new survey findings which suggest that their sewage systems still have a high prevalence of the polio virus. The monthly campaign will administer polio drops and injections to all children under the age of 10.
Health officers have been on high alerted after confirmation of the virus was received in said districts including Rawalpindi and Lahore in Punjab, Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur and Qambar in Sindh, Quetta and Qilla Abdullah in Balochistan and Peshawar, Bannu and Waziristan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P). In other districts of the country, diagnostic tests for polio virus have been proved negative.
The 11 districts have been reporting prevalence of the virus for the third year which warrants a monthly polio campaign, the first being scheduled between April 22 and 26.
Polio camps will be set up in private and government schools, airports, bus stands, district kacheri, hospitals and primary healthcare centres while mobile teams will hold the door-to-door campaign like they have in the past.
The families refusing to administer polio drops to the children will be given special focus and will be persuaded. In the future, B-forms, birth certificates and school admissions for children will also be issued upon submission of certificates confirming the polio vaccine.
Rawalpindi Additional Deputy Commissioner Saima Yunus has given strict directions to the mobile teams to remain highly focused and serious in their duties. Each child should be given polio drops, she advised the teams, directing them to especially focus on refusing families and approach their children at schools instead.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 20th, 2019.
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