A five-day anti-polio campaign has been started in six districts of South Punjab to administer anti-polio drops to over 4.5 million children of under-five years of age here on Monday. The six district were included Multan, Rahim Yar Khan, Dera Ghazi Khan, Muzaffargarh, Layyah and Rajanpur.
A total of 21,467 workers were participating in the campaign to achieve the target while 17,700 teams have been formed to administer polio vaccine drops to children through door to door visits. The teams including 16207 mobile teams, 380 fixed teams and 613 transit teams have been formed while 593 UCMOs and 7174 area incharges have been assigned to supervise the campaign.
Additional Chief Secretary South Punjab Capt (retd) Saqib Zafar has directed the Department of Primary and Secondary Health Care South Punjab to monitor the campaign strictly. Following the instructions, Secretary Primary and Secretary Health Care South Punjab Mehr Muhammad Hayat Luk has assigned monitoring duties to six officers of the secretariat and each officer has been given the responsibility of monitoring the polio campaign in each district.
Monitoring teams have been directed to submit performance report to the office of Additional Chief Secretary South Punjab on daily basis. Meanwhile a week-long anti-polio drive commenced in Faisalabad district on Monday, during which over 1.536 million children up to the age of five years would be administered polio vaccine.
A spokesman for the Health Department said on Monday that 4,869 teams were constituted, who would remain active in the field to vaccinate children during the drive, which would continue till May 21, 2023. He said that all resources would be utilised to sensitise parents about harms of the disease in addition to persuading them to get their children vaccinated.
