Summary Atleast 24,75,616 children are being inoculated anti-polio drops in the province.
QUETTA (Dunya News) – Three-day anti-polio drive in 30 districts of Balochistan including Quetta is on the move on its third day.
Atleast 24,75,616 children are being inoculated anti-polio drops in the province with the collaboration of Health Department Balochistan and Donor departments.
The local government has stated that 6,603 teams are participating in the campaign which will immunize drops to children at various stops like railway stations, bus stands and airports.
However, in Quetta 900 teams have been formed to inoculate polio drops to 3,75,000 children.
At least 1,800 security officers including Balochistan Constabulary (BC) and Levies personnel have been deputed on the security of the workers.
Health teams in Pakistan have been attacked repeatedly since the Taliban denounced vaccines as a Western plot to sterilize Muslims and imposed bans on inoculation in June 2012.
There is evidence in tests conducted on sewage samples in some of the country s major cities that the polio virus is starting to spread beyond these isolated pockets and could soon spark fresh polio outbreaks in more densely populated areas.
The virus has been cornered to just a handful of areas in Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the three countries where polio is endemic. Global cases have dropped by more than 99.9 percent in less than three decades, from 350,000 in 1985 to just 223 last year, according to the GPEI.
The World Health Organization says as long as any child remains infected, children everywhere are at risk.
