Daily Times

PESHAWAR: More than 0.5 million children under five will be administered the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) in the anti-Polio drive in five districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from April 3, 2016 (Monday).

Chairing a high-level meeting in this regard the Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Coordinator, Akbar Khan, informed that the upcoming campaign had been planned in Shangla, Battagram, Kohistan, 15 Union Councils of Abbottabad and 13 Union Councils of Mansehra as a case response to the Gilgilt-Baltistan Case.

“Tremendous successes have been achieved in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province due to hard work and dedication of Polio workers as well as valuable cooperation by partner organisations, parents, media and all segments of the society.

“But our ultimate target is to eliminate the crippling disease of Polio completely from the province and the region and we have to work hard to achieve this goal”, said Akbar Khan.

According to EOC data, 175000 children under five will be vaccinated against Polio in district Shangla, 90666 children in district Battagram, 83108 in district Kohistan, 85176 in 15 UCs of district Abbotabad and 69244 children in 13 UCs of Mansehra.

Akbar Khan said that stringent measures had been taken to provide security cover adding that teams had been constituted of trained health workers and were deployed at fixed and transit points.

To reach the target 1866 teams including 1607 mobile teams, 174 fixed teams, 74 transit teams and 11 roaming teams of trained health workers had been constituted for this anti Polio campaign. 425 area in-charges will supervise the campaign in their respective areas.