RAWALPINDI: The five-day anti-polio campaign will start in Rawalpindi district on Monday (November 27) to administer drops to more than 800,000 children under five years of age.

Deputy Commissioner Dr. Hassan Waqar Cheema told Dawn that the administration had completed the arrangements for the antipolio drive. He said that the campaign will continue for five days, and two days will be spent administering vaccinations to the children missed during the campaign.

He said that the aim of the campaign is to eradicate the polio virus. He further said that a little carelessness on the part of parents can become a lifelong regret for their children.Parents should allow finger marks only after having their children administered with drops.

He said that efforts should be made to cover refusal cases and non-attende d cases on the same day. Awareness banners should be placed at all prominent places in the city.

According to the details, as many as 245workers and 866 area in-charges have been appointed in Rawalpindi district for the antipollution campaign. 3680 mobile teams have been formed, 320 fixed points, and 199 transit points have been appointed.

The total number of teams is 4199. On the first day of the campaign, the target is to administer polio drops to 250,000 children in Rawalpindi district.

The National Immunisation Days (NIDs) will commence on November 27 (Monday), and the campaign will be held all over Punjab.

In Lahore, Rawalpindi, and Faisalabad, the campaign will continue for seven days until December 3, while in other districts, the campaign will last five days until December 1.

Across the province, nearly 204000 polio workers and supervisors will participate in the drive to immunise 21.26 million children under the age of five against polio. This includes 16575 area in-charges, 3985 union council medical officers, over 169,000 mobile polio team members, 4868 fixed team members, and over 2700 transit team members.

Attock The district health authorities have made extensive arrangements to administer antipolio drops to over 0.3 million children up to five years old in Attock district from Nov 27 to Dec1.

This was stated by Deputy Commissioner Attock Rao Atif Raza while briefing newsmen after presiding over a meeting of the health department to finalise the polio vaccination plan.

The meeting was attended by Attock District Health Authority Chief ExecutiveOfficerDr Asad Ismail, Medical Superintendent District Headquarters Hospital Attock Dr Jawad Ellahi, District Health Officer Attock Dr Kashif Hussain, deputy district health officers (DDHO) of six tehsils, superintendent vaccination programme, in-charge polio control room officials from education, health department, Punjab anti-polio programme, and representatives of the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Mr Raza said that after the detection of the Afghan origin of Type-1 wild poliovirus (WPV1) in environmental (sewage) samples in the adjacent district of Rawalpindi, the health authorities have also announced the launch of an anti-polio drive across the district.

Briefing newsmen on this occasion, Dr Asad Ismail said that around 90 medical officers and 233 area in-charges would supervise this campaign. He said 1,602 teams had been constituted, which would be present at all entry and exit points of the city, bus stands, railway stations, hospitals, and health centres.

He further revealed that 1,436 mobileteams, 136 fixed teams, and 40 transit teams had been constituted. A vaccinederived poliovirus type 2 (VDPV2) case was detected in the Hazro town of the district on July 12, 2020.