A police officer stands guard as a well being employee (proper) administers a polio vaccine to a toddler in a neighborhood in Peshawar, Pakistan. Archive | Photograph credit score: AP
Pakistan started a nationwide vaccination marketing campaign on Monday (October 28, 2024) to guard 45 million youngsters from polio after a surge in new circumstances that has hampered years of efforts to cease the illness in one of many two international locations the place it has by no means been eradicated.
Pakistan recurrently launches such campaigns, however violence in opposition to well being employees and police assigned to escort them is frequent. Militants falsely declare that vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize youngsters.
Pakistan stories two new polio circumstances; the quantity will increase to 39 this yr
The marketing campaign is the third this yr and can proceed till Sunday “in response to the alarming rise in polio circumstances,” mentioned Ayesha Raza Farooq, the Prime Minister’s adviser on the polio eradication programme. “We’re reinvigorated in our efforts to fight polio,” he mentioned in a press release.
In the course of the door-to-door marketing campaign, youngsters beneath 5 years of age will likely be vaccinated and given vitamin A complement drops to spice up their immunity. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif lately met frontline well being employees, urging them to make sure that no little one is left unvaccinated by going door to door.
Anwarul Haq, coordinator of the Nationwide Emergency Operations Heart for Polio Eradication, additionally urged dad and mom to totally cooperate with anti-polio employees. “Polio has no treatment, however it may be prevented with this accessible vaccine,” he mentioned.
4 new circumstances of polio reported in Pakistan and the quantity rises to 37 this yr
“Pakistan has recorded 41 circumstances in 71 districts to date this yr,” Farooq mentioned. The bulk had been reported in southwestern Balochistan and southern Sindh province, adopted by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and jap Punjab province.
The rise in circumstances in new places worries authorities, as earlier circumstances got here from the restive northwest bordering Afghanistan, the place the Taliban authorities instantly halted a door-to-door vaccination marketing campaign in September.
Pakistani authorities say the latest choice by the Afghan Taliban to halt the door-to-door marketing campaign in opposition to polio can have repercussions past the Afghan border, as individuals from each side steadily journey to the opposite’s nation. The World Well being Group has confirmed 18 circumstances of polio in Afghanistan this yr.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the one two international locations on the earth the place the unfold of polio has by no means been stopped. It is among the most infectious illnesses on the earth, so it continues to unfold anyplace individuals are not totally vaccinated. In extreme circumstances, polio could cause everlasting paralysis and demise.
Revealed – October 28, 2024 01:27 pm IST