LAHORE: Sehat Muhafiz polio eradication teams of Health Department Punjab will visit house-to-house to vaccinate nearly eight million children less than five years of age in 12 districts of Punjab as part of a campaign starting from Monday.

“Due to the ongoing virus circulation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Sindh, the government has decided to hold campaigns in those districts that share boundaries with the other three provinces as well as in cities which have a huge population movement from the polio-affected areas,” Punjab Minister for Primary & Secondary Healthcare Khawaja Imran Nazir said on Friday.

Ahead of the campaign, the Punjab Emergency Operations Centre for polio eradication assures the nation that polio vaccines are safe, efficacious and approved by the government’s drug regulatory authorities, the minister added.

Primary & Secondary Healthcare Punjab Secretary Ali Jan Khan urged parents to vaccinate their children during the five-day campaign especially those who were guests.

“The oral polio vaccine is safe and effective and has been used to eradicate polio in almost every country in the world,” said Ali Jan Khan. Punjab completed 2016 without a polio case. But a four-month-old child from Lodhran ended Punjab’s streak of 14 months without a case in 2017. In 2018, no polio case has been reported in Punjab. Since 2014, there has been an overall 97 percent reduction in polio cases in Pakistan: from 306 cases in 2014 to eight in 2017. This year, only one polio case has been reported from Balochistan. Globally, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria are the only three countries with polio.

Punjab’s Emergency Operation Centre Coordinator Dr Munir Ahmed emphasised the need for all children to be immunised during every round of immunisation campaign days.

“Multiple doses of polio vaccines are required for a child to be fully protected – sometimes more than 10. Parents who do not ensure vaccination of their children are risking the health and lives of their own children as well as others around them,” said Dr Munir Ahmed.

Published in Daily Times, May 5th 2018.