Punjab Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) has deployed special polio teams at key transit sites in Punjab. The decision to deploy polio teams was taken at a meeting chaired by the Punjab Emergency Operations Coordinator Khizer Afzaal Chaudhry. The meeting was attended by polio eradication partners. “The deployment will help prevent virus re-infection in the province”, said Khizer Afzaal.
“Districts have been directed to ensure that no child should travel without two drops of oral polio vaccine at the transit sites”, he said.
The moving populations run the risk of carrying the virus with them and infect unvaccinated and immuno-compromised children. The occasion of Eid serves as an opportunity to vaccinate travelling children and stop virus re-infection. Vaccination teams have been deployed at 93 sites in 10 districts of Punjab including Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan, Faisalabad, Bahawalpur, DG Khan, Rajanpur, Sialkot, Gujranwala and Gujrat. Major points where teams have been deployed include bus terminals, railway stations, hospitals, amusement parks and shopping malls.
“The deployment of teams will play a key role in vaccination of children till five years of age and mitigating the risk of virus transmission”, the EOC head said.
“The STPs established for Eidul Azha are separate to the 23 permanent sites established at inter-provincial boundaries with KP, Sindh and Baluchistan”, Khizer added. The districts include Attock, Mianwali, Bhakkar, DG Khan, Rajanpur, RY Khan, Multan, Faisalabad, Lahore and Sialkot.
Addressing the participants of the meeting, polio programme head hoped that deployment of polio teams will be helpful in preventing polio virus re-infection.
He directed the officials to ensure that polio teams are properly monitored as per the devised plan.
The positive samples indicate that polio still remains a threat to children unless it is eradicated from last two endemic countries including Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistan reported a polio case from Bannu this year which is located in the south Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region where most of the cases were reported last year.
