Summary Only 9 percent parents are not willing to inoculate polio drops to their children in Quetta.
QUETTA (Dunya News) – A three-day anti-polio drive has been launched in as many as 30 districts including Quetta today (Monday).
According to details, more than 24 lac children will be administered polio drops by at least 6,4,63 mobile teams at 783 fixed sites and 311 transit points.
During the campaign, as many as 55085 Afghans would also be vaccinated while the local government has also tightened up the security by deploying 1600 police, Frontier Corps (FC) and Levies personnel.
It is pertinent to mention here that about seven cases of polio have been registered in current year among which five were from Quetta.
Only 9 percent parents are not willing to inoculate polio drops to their children.
Earlier, year’s last anti-polio campaign of current year started in two phases in Karachi.
In first phase, the drive will be carried out in Malir, East and West districts while the second phase will be initiated on December 13 in Korangi, South and North districts.
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.
