Polio Immunization Campaign kicked off 5.7m children to be vaccinated in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

FRONTIER POST
The three days national immunization campaign started here on Monday in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Federally Administered Tribal Areas wherein 5.7 million children in KP and nine lakh in FATA would be vaccinated in the first drive this year, an official said.Jan Baz Afridi, Deputy Director, Expended Programme on Immunization (EPI), KP told media the campaign will continue till February 1, 2012. As many as 17,000 teams have been formed to administer the vaccine to all children up to the age of five. The teams would operate across the province and would be supported by paramedics and Lady Health Workers. To reach out every child, volunteers, associated with NGOs have also been engaged in the campaign.The vaccines have already been distributed among the teams. He said the teams have been advised to revisit the concerned children and provide them with fresh dosage of the vaccine to protect children against the cripple disease.He urged parents to cooperate with teams and provide drops to children with an objective to protect them from the fatal virus.”The vaccine is the same that has been used in most of the world to eradicate polio including Saudi Arabia and Indonesia,” he maintained. He said UN agencies, partners, donor governments, private sector and foundations have extended all possible support to ensure that the necessary resources are available for making the country polio free destination.Mr Afridi said the government and development partners are putting all efforts to make Pakistan a polio-free country and sought support of general public and local communities. Polio free Pakistan was the dream of Shaheed Jamhuriyat, Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Shaheed.The official said the government will get support of parliamentarians, media persons and ulema for success of this campaign. Its main focus is administering anti polio drops to children living in high risk areas. He said polio vaccine used in the country is safe and effective and is produced internationally while World Health Organization (WHO) has approved its quality.