Daily Times

PESHAWAR: Three-day anti-polio vaccination campaign starts on Monday (today) under the supervision and security provided by political agents, commissioners and law enforcing agencies.

Three days oral polio vaccination (OPV) campaign will continue from April 17, 2017 to April19, 2017 followed by catch up of children during the polio campaign.

Total of 1036309 children below the age of 5 years will be vaccinatedby 4239 teams, comprising 3854 mobile teams, 284 fixed teams, 101transit teams.

EOC FATA Coordinator Dr. Fida Mohammad Wazir said, “We areanticipating stoppage of polio transmission in FATA this year and would leave no stone unturned to achieve that.”

He said “Honorable Governor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa EngineerIqbal Zafar Jhagra has shown personal interest in Polio Eradication program and that high level engagement has paid the dividend as no case has been reported in FATA for the last nine months, and now it’s on us to sustain that success.”

He paid rich tributes to the dedication of Polio workers especially those reaching each house under extreme situations and termed them as a “big asset to the program”.

In a recently held recently Technical Advisory Group (TAG) meeting at Islamabad, Chairman Technical Advisory Group (TAG) Jean-Marc Olivé praised the remarkable progress made by FATA Polio Program against polio in the year 2016 and 17, however, he emphasized the need for engaging more female teams, decreasing the number of missed children and improving routine immunization in FATA.

Earlier a phase wise IPV-OPV campaign was launched in FATA during February and March 2017 with remarkable success as external evaluation adjudged the coverage over 95%.

Dr Fida Muhammad Wazir said that special IPV-OPV campaign in Shaktoi area of South Waziristan has also been successfully completed in April 2017. He added “Shaktoi was inaccessible since 2012 and The Governor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa led it from the front who coordinated at the higher level with Pak Army for reaching out to those children, which bore fruit and would continue to be covered in other campaigns as well.”

He praised the efforts of Pak Army and Political Agentat South Waziristan Agency for resolving this long standing issue. During this special campaign 827 children were vaccinated with IPV and OPV was administered to 1371 children.