Every week-long polio eradication marketing campaign throughout Pakistan started on Monday amid tight safety to make sure its easy crusing in opposition to the crippling illness that noticed a surge this yr with 63 circumstances reported to this point.
Based on the World Well being Organisation (WHO), Pakistan and Afghanistan stay the one nations the place the paralysing virus continues to be rampant.
Throughout the marketing campaign, greater than 44.7 million kids below the age of 5 shall be vaccinated. The marketing campaign has began throughout 143 districts of the nation to stop the resurgence of the polio virus.
A goal has been set to vaccinate 23.3 million kids in Punjab’s 36 districts, 7.2 million in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s 36 districts, 10.6 million in Sindh’s 30 districts and a pair of.6 million in Balochistan’s 36 districts.
Moreover, greater than 800,000 kids shall be vaccinated in Islamabad, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and 5 districts of Gilgit-Baltistan.
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province alone, 54,000 safety personnel, together with police and Frontier Corps troops, have been deployed to offer safety to the polio vaccinators within the restive components of the province.
Kurram district has been excluded from the anti-polio drive because of the safety scenario within the sectarian rife district bordering Afghanistan.
Information company AP reported that authorities deployed hundreds of law enforcement officials to guard the well being employees following intelligence reviews that insurgents might goal them.
Citing well being officers and authorities, AP mentioned greater than 200 polio employees and police assigned for his or her safety have been killed because the Nineties.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday inaugurated the final marketing campaign of the yr by administering polio drops to kids below the age of 5 on the event whereas reaffirming their willpower to eradicate the illness from Pakistan.
In his tackle, the premier expressed concern over the rise in polio circumstances. Nevertheless, he assured the nation that collaborative efforts by federal and provincial governments would overcome the problem.
Pakistan’s efforts to eradicate polio obtained a jolt because the nationwide tally of infections in 2024 reached 63, a stark distinction to only six circumstances reported in 2023.
Pakistan had decreased polio to only one case in 2021, giving hope that the nation would quickly get polio-free standing, however the menace returned in 2022 with 20 new circumstances. Earlier, the an infection peaked in 2019 when 147 new circumstances had been reported.
There isn’t any remedy for polio. Solely a number of doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all kids below the age of 5 can hold them protected.
Afghanistan reported at the very least 23 confirmed circumstances in 2024, in line with knowledge from the WHO
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