The Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for polio in Sindh has launched its first anti-polio drive of the year in Karachi on Monday. The campaign will continue till February 26 with the aim to eradicate polio from Pakistan.
A nine-day anti-polio drive has been started in ten towns and 106 Union Councils (UC) of Karachi. Sindh government has also established 2,000 centres in the city where parents will bring their children to give them injections and OPV to save them from polio. The parents have also been appealed by authorities to bring their children to centres for vaccination.
According to officials, 1,529,487 children under the age of five years would be administrated oral polio vaccine while 1,483,602 children would be given polio injections.
The aim of the IPV campaign is to add protection for children who might fall prey to this virus after strains of polio virus were found in the megacity.
After the directions of the education department Sindh, the heads of schools are administering IPV and OPV campaign and coordinating with polio teams.
The drive Karachi, is covering Korangi, Orangi, Landhi, SITE, Gulshan e Iqbal, Baldia, Liaquatabad, North Nazimabad, Gadap and Bin Qasim towns.
Only one polio case was detected in Karachi in 2018; however, because of the presence of the polio virus in sewage, EOC Sindh has launching IPV and OPV drive in the city.
During the month of December, sewage water samples were collected from cities of the country including Karachi and tested positive for the poliovirus. The genetic analysis reports from the Polio Virology Laboratory at the National Institute of Health confirmed that the virus was able to take the road from current hotspots within country and in Afghanistan, posing risk for under immunized children residing elsewhere.
The nationwide anti-polio drive is under way in Karachi, Peshawar, Qila Abdullah, Pishin and other cities in which at least 90,000 vaccinators are taking part to ensure protection for more than 39 million children from polio virus, said Rana Muhammad Safdar, the coordinator of the National Emergency Operations Centre for Polio Eradication.
