KARACHI: The Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for polio launched the fresh anti-polio campaign in Karachi on Monday. The campaign will continue until February 23 and will target approximately 2.4 million children under 5 years of age. “Twelve thousand front line workers are taking part in the campaign and 5,000 police personnel have been deployed to provide security cover,” said an EOC statement. According to reports, the total case count for polio in 2017 was eight in Pakistan out of which two cases were from Karachi. This is a historical low for the country and the province. There have been no cases so far in 2018 EOC Coordinator Sindh Fayaz Jatoi said “We are in a good position to eradicate polio. The environment samples in northern Sindh are negative. We have come a long way to achieve historically low cases but more work needs to be done and we must improve further.” Last week, an anti-polio campaign in all districts of Sindh except Karachi immunised approximately 6.3 million children across the province. Published in Daily Times, February 20th 2018.