ISLAMABAD — Pakistan will receive 45 million copies starting Monday after a surge in new infections hampers years of efforts to stop polio in one of only two countries yet to eradicate polio. A nationwide vaccination campaign has been launched to protect children from polio.
Pakistan regularly launches such campaigns, often with violent acts targeting medical workers and the police assigned to protect them. Militants falsely claim that the vaccination campaign is a Western plot to sterilize children.
The campaign is the third of the year and will continue until Sunday “in response to the alarming rise in polio cases”, said Ayesha Raza Farooq, advisor to the prime minister on polio eradication programmes. “We are refocusing our efforts to fight polio,” she said in a statement.
During the door-to-door campaign, children under the age of five will be vaccinated and given intravenous vitamin A supplements to boost their immunity.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif recently met with frontline health workers and asked them to go door to door to ensure that no child remains unvaccinated.
Anwarul Haq, coordinator of the National Emergency Action Center for Polio Eradication, also urged parents to cooperate fully with polio workers. “There is no cure for polio, but it can be prevented with this readily available vaccine,” he said.
Farooq said Pakistan has recorded 41 cases in 71 districts so far this year. Most cases were reported from southwestern Balochistan and southern Sindh, followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and eastern Punjab.
Previous cases were in the restive northwest, which borders Afghanistan, and the Taliban regime abruptly halted a door-to-door vaccination campaign in September, prompting a surge in cases in new locations that has left authorities struggling. It’s worrying.
Pakistani officials say the Afghan Taliban’s recent decision to halt door-to-door polio eradication efforts will have repercussions beyond Afghanistan’s borders, as people from both countries frequently travel back and forth between each other’s countries. states. The World Health Organization has confirmed 18 cases of polio in Afghanistan this year.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries in the world where the spread of polio has not been stopped. It is one of the most contagious diseases in the world and continues to spread in areas that have not been fully vaccinated. In severe cases, polio can lead to permanent paralysis and death.
