Seven-day Anti-polio Campaign Begins In Sindh Province From August 2

The Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for Polio in Sindh on Monday started a 7-day polio immunisation campaign in 22 districts of Sindh from August 2 to 8 to inoculate approximately 7.4 million children under 5 years of age against the crippling disease

KARACHI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Aug, 2021 ) :The Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for Polio in Sindh on Monday started a 7-day polio immunisation campaign in 22 districts of Sindh from August 2 to 8 to inoculate approximately 7.4 million children under 5 years of age against the crippling disease.

According to EOC Sindh, out of the 7.4 million target, more than 2.2 million children reside in Karachi.

During this campaign, the workers of the polio vaccination campaign will be given the necessary protective gear for their protection against coronavirus infection and will be following all WHO recommended protocols to keep themselves and others safe from COVID-19. This includes wearing of masks, using hand sanitizers, knocking on doors with pens and elbows rather than hands and not directly handling children.

While we deal with the pandemic as it's also very important to ensure childhood vaccinations including polio and we urge parents to bring their children forward for vaccination, said spokesperson of EOC Sindh.

Polio vaccination drives and routine immunisation came to a halt in Sindh last year from March to July, following the Covid-19 outbreak. "This created an immunity gap among children and badly effected the polio situation in the country, however we have been addressing this through back-to-back campaigns since August 2020 and have come a long way to protect children from this deadly virus" said the EOC Sindh spokesperson.

Sindh has not reported a single polio case for more than one year and this shows that the polio vaccine is effective in controlling the virus and parents should bring forward their under 5 children for vaccination during every campaign to build their immunity. In addition, all the environment samples in Sindh are also free of the polio virus for the first time in three years.

Coordinator EOC Sindh, Fayaz Abbasi said "Good progress has been made but there is no room for complacency and we must double our efforts to ensure that we sustain and capitalize on the progress made, there is a lot more work to be done to ensure a polio free Sindh and a polio free Pakistan"The benefits of vaccination are clear as frequent campaigns have significantly reduced the burden of polio across the country; there is only one case in all of Pakistan this year which was reported from Balochistan in January 2021.

The Pakistan Pediatric Association, Pakistan Medical Islamic Medical Association, medical experts across the world, as well as religious clerics endorse the oral polio vaccine as the safest and most effective, for not only preventing polio but also eradicating it from the environment.