- Innoculation drive to be carried out from Dec 15 to 21 countrywide.
- Greater than 45m kids throughout nation heading in the right direction for immunisation.
- Pakistan amongst two international locations the place polio stays endemic.
Federal Minister for Well being Syed Mustafa Kamal on Thursday inaugurated the ultimate polio marketing campaign of the outgoing yr 2025, which aimed to immunise greater than 45 million kids throughout Pakistan towards the debilitating illness.
The drive will likely be carried out from December 15 to 21, with greater than 400,000 frontline polio staff participating within the marketing campaign.
On the event, the minister stated that Pakistan is without doubt one of the final two international locations on the planet, alongside Afghanistan, the place polio stays endemic. To date, the nation has recorded 30 polio instances, with the best variety of instances in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) at 19, he added.
Kamal stated that the variety of instances within the nation had decreased from 74 to 30 compared to final yr.
He stated 200,000 kids in South KP had not been immunised towards polio because of the “regulation and order scenario” within the province, he added.
Kamal additional highlighted the virus’s presence in a number of cities, together with Peshawar, Karachi, and Lahore. He urged mother and father to cooperate with the polio staff who have been collaborating within the marketing campaign and known as on non secular students and elected representatives to actively assist within the drive.
The federal government stays decided to remove the virus within the nation, he concluded.
Polio is very contagious and incurable, with the potential to trigger lifelong paralysis. Efficient safety will depend on repeated doses of the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) for each little one underneath 5 throughout every marketing campaign, alongside the well timed completion of all routine immunisations.
The Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI) has intensified operations to maintain complete protection and guarantee high-quality campaigns in susceptible areas of the nation. The Nationwide Process Power has endorsed the 2025-26 roadmap to halt transmission by means of a number of supplementary immunisation actions and by strengthening routine immunisation.
Polio as soon as paralysed about 1,000 kids day-after-day in additional than 125 international locations. If eradicated, it might change into solely the second human illness ever eradicated after smallpox and will save the world greater than $33 billion by the yr 2100.
