Pakistan launched its second nationwide polio marketing campaign this 12 months on Monday in a bid to vaccinate 44 million kids beneath the age of 5.
A well being employee provides the polio vaccine to a baby in a neighborhood in Lahore, Pakistan, Monday, October 2, 2023. (AP Photograph/KM Chaudary)
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Islamabad — Pakistan launched its second nationwide polio marketing campaign this 12 months on Monday in a bid to vaccinate 44 million kids beneath the age of 5 amid indicators that the nation is on the verge of eliminating the illness.
Interim Prime Minister Anwar Haq Kakar launched the five-day vaccination marketing campaign within the capital, Islamabad, urging mother and father in a televised speech to cooperate with 350,000 well being staff who’re going door-to-door to manage vaccine drops to kids.
The marketing campaign came about amid tight safety measures. The federal government deployed police and safety forces to make sure the protection of these working within the vaccination marketing campaign.
Vaccine suppliers and the police charged with defending them have been attacked throughout earlier anti-polio campaigns, which militants falsely claimed was a Western plot to sterilize kids.
Pakistan has recorded two new circumstances of polio since January, a blow to the purpose of eradicating the illness that impacts the nervous system and may trigger extreme paralysis in kids.
Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the one nations on the planet the place polio nonetheless threatens kids’s well being and well-being.
Pakistan got here near eliminating polio in 2021, when just one case was reported, and final 12 months it reported about two dozen circumstances.
Circumstances up to now this 12 months have been reported from northwest Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan, the place Taliban rulers final week launched a four-day polio vaccine marketing campaign focusing on kids beneath 5. The Ministry of Well being stated that 11 million kids had been vaccinated.
In 2022, solely two circumstances of polio have been reported in Afghanistan, elevating hopes of eradicating the illness. 5 circumstances have been reported up to now this 12 months.
Earlier than taking management of Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban prevented UN-organized vaccination groups from conducting door-to-door campaigns in elements of the nation beneath their management. The group apparently suspected that workforce members is perhaps spies for the previous authorities or the West.
(Tags for translation) Polio and post-polio syndrome