PESHAWAR: The World Health Organisation has pinned hopes on administration of injectable antipolio vaccine to boost up immunity of children against the disease.

The six-day campaign targeting 16,000 children in Frontier Region of Bannu was need of the hour in view of the poliovirus circulation, WHO Fata team leader Dr Sarfaraz Khan Afridi said. He said that the new vaccine to be given to children in combination with the oral vaccine would scale up their immunity level and protect them against the disease.

Dr Afridi said that the new vaccine was first introduced in Quetta in December on a small scale insome high-risk union councils. It had been used successfully in conflict-s tricken endemic regions of the world, he said.

However, contrary to OPV, which can be administered by any person through mouth during door-to-door visits, the IPV are given intramuscularly at the government-run health facilities by trained technicians in FR Bannu. `It has no side effects and has been scientifically recommended in conflict areas,` Dr Afridi said.

According to him, the administration of OPV is started at birth of a child whereas the IPV is administered only by trained people to the children between four to 23 months.

`The new vaccine provides double protection to recipients. We will keep giving OPV to the childrenunder the programme up to five years,` he said.

The WHO official said that they administered IPV to displaced people from Waziristan as well as local children in view of their vulnerability to the virus. `We are also thinking of running similar campaign in Bara, Khyber Agency in the next phase,` he said.

Dr Afridi said that children were brought to the nearby health facilities for IPV. There were also fixed points for the purpose in the community, he said.

Fata recorded 175 cases of the nationwide 297 polio cases in 2014.

Along with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which recorded 70 polio cases, Fata is blamed for hampering worldwide pollo eradication campaign.`Fata has overtaken Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in launching the IPV,` officials said. They added that the province`s plan to start IPV in Peshawar and Bannu districts last year was yet to see light of the day.

Officials said that it had been noted in the past that many children were affected by polio despite getting OPV. The IPV and OPV combination gave encouraging results in Bajaur Agency where children were put to trials in a study done by a Karachi-based university, they said.

Officials said the IPV was being included in the expanded programme on immunisation to be given regularly to the children.

Under the programme, the children would start getting IPV by midyear, they said.