Daily Times

PESHAWAR: A three-day anti-polio vaccination campaign will kick-off on Monday (today) in 13 high risk districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the entire tribal region including seven Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and six Frontier Regions (FR).

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the immunisation campaign will be carried out in 604 union councils and 67 camps of displaced families including Afghan refugees.

This was decided at a meeting of the Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, chaired by the coordinator Akbar Khan, here on Sunday.

Addressing the meeting, Akbar Khan said that during the campaign a total of 3,644,000 children below five years of age would be vaccinated and for this purpose 12,059 teams of trained health workers had been formed. The immunisation process would be supervised by 2,643 area in charges or supervisors.

He maintained that the three-day campaign would start on August 29, 2016, whereas eight districts include Peshawar, Charsadda, Nowshera, Mardan, Swabi, Swat, Kohat, Karak, Hangu, Bannu, Lakki Marwat, DI Khan and Tank would be the targeted areas. During the campaign, 67 camps of IDPs and Afghan refugees, and all the 604 union councils will be accessed to immunise 36, 44000 children.

Meanwhile, a three-day anti-polio campaign is also beginning in FATA and Frontier Regions on Monday.

The Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) Deputy Director for FATA, Ikhtiar Ali, said that they had formed a total of 2964 teams of community-based vaccinators to immunise children in the entire FATA and Frontier Regions.

The campaign will be followed by a catch-up of missed children, under the supervision and security provided by political agents, commissioners and security forces. In the entire FATA and Frontier Regions, 10,33,554 children below the age of five years will be vaccinated. According to an official statement, FATA has so far reported only one polio case in 2016 as compared to 16 polio cases in 2015.