ISLAMABAD — Pakistan started a nationwide vaccination marketing campaign Monday to guard 45 million kids from polio after a surge in new circumstances that has hampered years of efforts to cease the illness in one of many two nations the place it has by no means been eradicated.
Pakistan commonly launches such campaigns, however violence concentrating on the well being staff and police assigned to escort them is frequent. Militants falsely declare the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize kids.
The marketing campaign is the third this 12 months and can proceed till Sunday “in response to the alarming improve in polio circumstances,” mentioned Ayesha Raza Farooq, the prime minister’s adviser for the polio eradication program. “We’re re-energized in our efforts to fight polio,” she mentioned in a press release.
In the course of the door-to-door marketing campaign, kids youthful than 5 will likely be vaccinated and given drops of Vitamin A dietary supplements to boost their immunity.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif just lately met with front-line well being staff, urging them to make sure no little one was left unvaccinated by going door-to-door.
Anwarul Haq, who’s the coordinator of the Nationwide Emergency Operations Centre for Polio Eradication, additionally urged mother and father to totally cooperate with polio staff. “Polio has no remedy, however it may be prevented with this available vaccine,” he mentioned.
Pakistan has recorded 41 circumstances throughout 71 districts thus far this 12 months, Farooq mentioned. Most had been reported from southwestern Balochistan and southern Sindh province, following by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and jap Punjab province.
The surge in circumstances in new areas is worrying authorities since earlier circumstances had been from the restive northwest bordering Afghanistan, the place the Taliban authorities in September immediately stopped a door-to-door vaccination marketing campaign.
Authorities in Pakistan say the Afghan Taliban’s latest choice to cease door-to-door anti-polio marketing campaign could have repercussions past the Afghan border, as folks from each side incessantly journey to one another’s nation. The World Well being Group has confirmed 18 polio circumstances in Afghanistan this 12 months.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the one two nations on the planet the place the unfold of polio has by no means been stopped. It is among the world’s most infectious illnesses, so it continues to unfold anyplace individuals are not totally vaccinated. In extreme circumstances, polio may cause everlasting paralysis and demise.
