ISLAMABAD: Over 800,000 children in Pakistan would receive polio vaccination in three days when the drive against the crippling disease would resume from next week after it was suspended because of the coronavirus outbreak, an official said on Tuesday.
Pakistan on February 17 launched a countrywide anti-polio campaign to vaccinate about 39.6 million children under the age of five in the country as the government appealed to the people for their support to eradicate polio.
However, it was put on hold after the first coronavirus case was reported in the country in February.
More than 800,000 children will be vaccinated in the three-day drive beginning from Monday, according to the health official linked with the National Institute of Health.
The plan to re-launch the anti-polio drive was made possible due to reduction of new coronavirus cases in the country, the official said.
During the last 24 hours, 1,979 new cases were reported which were the lowest since May 26 when 1,446 cases were reported, according to an official data.
A spokesperson at the Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for Polio at Sindh said that these campaigns are of utmost importance as we must give children oral polio vaccine to save them from polio and to ensure a healthy future for them, Pakistan is one of the two polio-endemic countries in the world along with Afghanistan and has so far reported a total of 58 polio cases out of which 20 cases are from Sindh, the Express Tribune reported.
Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria are the three countries in the world where polio is still endemic.
The EOC faced a setback due to the pandemic when global polio campaigns were halted in March and it is absolutely necessary now that these vaccines are provided to fill the immunity gap in children, the spokesperson added.
Talking about the safety measures during the campaign he said that "We are taking all the World Health Organisation's recommended precautionary measures for the upcoming campaigns, parents have nothing to fear."
"Our workers have been provided sanitisers, masks, gloves and will not directly handle any child, not knock on doors and not interact closely with parents, spending minimum time at the doorsteps," spokesperson assured.
Special security arrangements have been made for the safety of polio workers who are often attached by the extremists, who oppose the drives, claiming the polio drops cause infertility.
Attacks on immunisation teams have claimed nearly 70 lives since December 2012.
Last year, 147 cases were reported which reversed the gain of the previous couple of years.
In 2017, only 12 cases were reported which created a hope that Pakistan would be declared polio free in a few years.
Last month, Pakistan's Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa told billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates that despite the COVID-19 outbreak, the country will restart the anti-polio campaign in the coming weeks and the military will support the government's efforts.