3rd Round Of Special Anti-polio Drive In Bannu From Monday

In view of polio outbreak in Bannu Division, four days polio case response vaccination campaign has been decided in three districts of the Bannu division from July 22, next wherein more than 4.5 million children under the age of five will be vaccinated against polio

PESHAWAR, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 19th Jul, 2019 ) :In view of polio outbreak in Bannu Division, four days polio case response vaccination campaign has been decided in three districts of the Bannu division from July 22, next wherein more than 4.5 million children under the age of five will be vaccinated against polio.

Decision to this effect was taken in a high level meeting here at Emergency Operations Center Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with Coordinator EOC Capt ( R) Kamran Ahmad Afridi in the chair.

Director EPI Dr Akram Shah and representative of N Stop, UNICEF, WHO and BMGF were also present on the occasion.

The meeting was informed about the logistic, operational and communications readiness status for the upcoming case response campaign in Bannu division.

It was told that the campaign will be conducted in District Bannu, Lakki Marwat and District North Waziristan of Bannu Division under the supervision of Commissioners, Deputy Commissioners, and District Health Officers with security support of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police and law enforcing agencies.

A total of 458466 children will be vaccinated by 2147 well trained polio teams, comprising 1932 mobile teams, 110 fixed teams, 93 transit teams and 12 roaming teams with 505 area incharge deployed to oversee and monitor vaccination at local level.

It is pertinent to mention here that the number of polio cases soared to 35 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 45 in the country during 2019, so far.

Out of the 35 polio cases of the province 25 have been reported from Bannu division only.

According to the data, main reason of increase in polio cases has been parental refusal to routine-immunization as well as polio vaccination which leaves children vulnerable to vaccine preventable diseases including wild polio virus.

Coordinator EOC Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Capt. (R) Kamran Ahmed Afridi that case response campaigns in Bannu Division is crucial for stopping the outbreak and transmission of polio virus since most of the cases reported during 2019 are from Bannu Division.

He said oral polio vaccine is the safest and effective vaccine in the world and is key to secure our children against polio disease. Believing in propaganda and lies against vaccination, refusing anti polio drops will only leave their children vulnerable to the attack of virus, he added.

Kamran Afridi said that resisting patents have faced the unfortunate incident of polio case at their homes and appealed to parents/caregivers to save their children from paralysis and fulfill their responsibilities by administering anti-polio drops to their children when polio teams knock on their door.

It is relevant to mention here that two case response campaigns have already been successfully carried out in June and July in Bannu division while next round of anti-polio drive is planned from July 22, 2019.