KARACHI: To ensure the safety of every child in Pakistan, the Pakistan Pediatric Association (PPA) has appealed to parents to ensure that all children, from birth to 2 years of age, receive oral polio vaccine during this campaign and the subsequent ones.
"We should immunize our children with routine EPI Vaccines and also administer polio drops every time a campaign is conducted in your area. Let’s make Pakistan a safe place for our children," says the PPA.
The nationwide polio vaccination campaign has been kicked off on Jan 8 (today), aiming to vaccinate a total of 44.35 million children under the age of five across various regions, except three districts of South KP— Lakki Marwat, South Waziristan Upper, and South Waziristan Lower— where the drive is scheduled for January 15th to 19th.
The campaign will target 22.6 million children in Punjab, 10.3m in Sindh, 7.5m in KP, 2.6m in Balochistan, 0.72m in AJK, 0.28m in GB, and 0.42m in Islamabad.
The campaign will span three days, with a two-day catch-up, in general areas, including mobile team areas. In regions the Community-Based Vaccination and Special Mobile Team approach will be implemented. Over 400,000 frontline polio workers are participating in the initiative.
While significant progress has been made towards polio eradication in most parts of Pakistan, there are still pockets where the wild polio virus circulates. Despite the cooperation of parents, there were a few polio cases reported in 2023.