21 mn Pakistani children to get anti-polio drops
By IANSWednesday, January 20, 2010
ISLAMABAD - Twenty-one million children below the age of five will receive anti-polio drops in 73 high-risk districts of Pakistan in a three-day campaign that concludes Thursday.
Quoting an official of the health ministry’s Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI), Geo News reported Wednesday that 45,000 vaccination teams across country would administer the drops.
Of the districts where the campaign is being conducted, 22 are in Sindh, 17 are in Balochistan, 15 in the North West Frontier Province, 13 in Punjab and five in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The drops are also being administered in this federal capital.
Pakistan had targeted becoming polio-free by 2010 but the country’s first case of the new year was confirmed Monday in a nine-month-old.
The National Institute of Health confirmed the polio virus in a child identified as Bushra, a resident of FATA’s Bara district.
Pakistan had 117 confirmed polio cases in 2009.
Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Nigeria are the only four countries in the world where the disease is prevalent.
