ISLAMABAD: The second phase of the Polio vaccination drive concluded in 12 districts of Balochistan and 26 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
During the five-day campaign, more than 4.12 million children were vaccinated in both provinces.
Federal Minister for Health Abdul Qadir Patel said that the focus was to ensure the vaccination of every child so that they remain protected from poliovirus, which has been found circulating in environmental samples.
“The presence of wild polio in the environment shows that the virus is circulating in our communities and posing a serious risk to our children,” the minister said.
“With Ramazan around the corner, population movements can increase the risk of further spread, therefore, it is critical that parents and caregivers vaccinate their children in every campaign,” he said.
“We have specifically designed this March campaign to reach areas where population movement is not just frequent but also expected during Ramazan and Eid festival,” said Dr Shahzad Baig, National Emergency Operations Center.
“It is essential that we reach as many children as possible with the vaccine now to curb polio transmission,” he added.
No human case has been reported in Pakistan since September 2022 when a polio outbreak paralyzed 20 children – all of them in southern KP districts. Wild poliovirus was detected for the first time this year in sewage samples collected from two separate sites in Lahore in January, he said.
Two more samples have since then tested positive for polio – wild polio has been detected in a sample collected from D.I. Khan and variant poliovirus has been detected from Ghotki.
The polio programme has taken all efforts to ensure the vaccination of children to keep them safe from this highly infectious disease in the context of positive environmental samples detected in some places, he said.
