Five-day anti-polio campaign begins in KP

Web Desk

21st Feb, 2022. 11:16 am
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A five-day anti-polio campaign begins in six southern districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Monday, Radio Pakistan reported.

According to Coordinator Emergency Operation Center Abdul Basit, these districts include Bannu, Lakki Marwat, Tank, Dera Ismail Khan, South and North Waziristan tribal districts.

During the five-day campaign, five thousand seven hundred mobile teams of the health department will administer anti-polio drops to more than one million children up to five years of age.

Polio teams will also be available at railway stations, bus stands and other public places to ensure administering anti-polio drops.

Pakistan is one of just three countries in the world, along with Afghanistan and Nigeria that have endemic polio, a once-common childhood virus that can cause paralysis or death.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), polio has been all but wiped out across the world following a sustained vaccination campaign, with only 22 cases reported in 2017 against more than 350,000 in 1988.

There is no known cure but the disease can be prevented if children are given multiple treatments with the polio vaccine, said the WHO.

While it has virtually eliminated, polio remains a threat to global health because as long as a single child remains infected, the virus can easily be spread into polio-free countries and unimmunised populations, the agency added.