By Ashrafuddin Pirzada
LANDIKOTAL: To administer polio
drops to the missing children, Fata health department is launching a special three-day
anti-polio campaign today (Wednesday).officials said on Tuesday.
Political Agent of Khyber Agency,captain( R)
Khalid Mehmood told this scribe that he directed all the concerned officials in
Landikotal, Jamrud and Bara to complete their preparations. He said special
squads of Khyber Levies and Khasadars have already been assigned their task to
provide foolproof security to the polio teams.
He said active campaign would
continue for three days to catch up the missing children. He added the same
practice would also be come in force as Fata secretariat had issued directives
to all the tribal agencies and Frontier Regions(FRs) political agents and
Deputy commissioners.
Khalid said polio program in
Pakistan was a top national priority that demands a high level of performance
this year to kill polio virus for the rest of life. For the purpose, he said, special
anti-polio campaigns were aiming to curb transmission of polio virus at the end
of 2016.
A health official in Fata
secretariat told this scribe that total 1.1 million children were their target
to administer them polio drops in Fata and Frontier Regions.He said children
below the 5-year of age would be vaccinated.
He said they have constituted total 4146 teams in which 3753 would be mobile
teams while 292 of them were fixed teams. He said they have also dispatched 101
transit teams to the farflung areas of Fata where they would be focused on the
children moving from one place to another. He said the campaign was focused on reaching
and vaccinating every child for ultimate polio eradication.
The Fata official said due to returning
of displaced families the polio campaign in many parts of Mehsud areas of South
Waziristan Agency was scheduled from November 28th, 2016.
The official said with the close coordination
of all political administrations, law enforcement agencies, national and
international partners the anti-polio they would be able to achieve the set targets and
eliminate polio virus from the Pakistani soil.
It is to be mentioned here that so
far only two polio cases have been reported from South Waziristan Agency in
Fats and FRs regions during the current year of 2016. Both the polio cases were
from among the displaced families recently returned to South Waziristan Agency
from Afghanistan.
In 2016, total number of wild polio
cases from all around Pakistan are 18 from 13 districts/towns (compared to 49
cases from 22 districts during 2015).
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