By Moin Ullah Shah
KARACHI: A varied-duration anti-polio campaign is set to begin today across Punjab, Sindh, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. During the drive, more than 40 million children under the age of five will be administered anti-polio vaccine drops.
In Karachi, authorities said all arrangements for the seven-day vaccination campaign had been completed. The announcement followed a review meeting chaired by the city’s commissioner, Syed Hassan Naqvi. The meeting was attended by deputy commissioners, health officials, and officers from the Sindh Emergency Operations Centre (EOC), with several participants joining via video link.
Officials briefed the commissioner on preparedness, micro-planning, and inter-departmental coordination. Running from 2 to 8 February, the Karachi campaign aims to vaccinate more than 2.1 million children under five. Over 22,000 polio workers have been deployed, supported by more than 2,700 area in-charges and 267 union council medical officers.
Security will be provided by over 7,000 personnel. Health authorities told the meeting that a comprehensive plan had been developed jointly by the district administration, the health department, and the Emergency Operations Centre, with support from the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the Gates Foundation, and Rotary International.
All deputy commissioners were assigned the target of achieving 100 percent coverage. Naqvi described the fight against polio as a national mission and urged all institutions to work together with a sense of collective responsibility. He stressed the need to focus on children who had previously been missed or whose parents had refused vaccination.
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