KARACHI: The emergency operation centre (EOC) for polio in Sindh launched the fifth pollo campaign of the current year across Sindh on Monday, which began `peacefully` and would continue till Saturday, officials said on Monday.

They said the polio drive would cover approximately eight million children aged less than Eve years across Sindh with around two million little ones in the sprawling provincial capital.

Officials in the health ministry said more than 50,000 workers (teams and area in-charges) were taking part in the campaign, which included over8,000 in Karachi.

Besides, 5,000 police personnel will be providing security cover to polio teams in the city.

The total case count for pollo in 2017 was eight in Pakistan out of which two cases were from Karachi in Sindh.

`This is a historical low for the country and the province. There has been no case so far in Sindh this year and there has been one polio case in Pakistan reported from Balochistan, said an official in the health ministry.

`We are in a good position to eradicare polio; the environment samples in Karachi have become negative because of repeated and intense polio campaigns,` said an official in the EOC Sindh.`We have come a long way to achieve historically low cases, but more work needs to be done and we must improve further,` he added.

Officials called upon the teams to continue their hard work and asked parents to vaccinate their children to save them from the scourge of polio.

`No child should suffer from a vaccine-preventable disease and it is our collective responsibility to make sure all children are vaccinated so we have a healthy future for our generations, said an official.

A general appeal directed to the public said: `Please vaccinate your children under five years of age in every campaign. It is necessary for children to develop immunity against polio.