RAWALPINDI: In anticipation of wide scale movement of population on Eidul Azha, the Punjab Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) has deployed special polio teams at key transit sites in Punjab. The decision to deploy polio teams was taken at a meeting chaired by the EOC Coordinator Khizer Afzaal Chaudhary. The meeting was attended by polio eradication partners.

`The deployment will help prevent virus reinfection in the province,` said Mr Chaudhary, the Punjab EOC coordinator in a press release. `Districts have been directed to ensure that that no child travels without two drops of oral polio vaccine at transit sites,` he added.

The moving population runs the risk of carrying the virus with them and infect unvaccinated and immuno-compromised children. The occasion of Eid serves as an opportunity to vaccinate travelling children and stop virus reinfection.Vaccination teams have been deployed at 93 sites in 10 districts of Punjab including Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan, Faisalabad, Bahawalpur, Dera GhaziKhan,Rajanpur, Sialkot, Gujranwala and Gujrat.

Major points where teams have been deployed include bus terminals, railway stations, hospitals, amusement parks and shopping malls.`The deployment of teams will play a key role in vaccination of children till five years of age and mitigating the risk of virus transmission,` the EOC head said.

`The STPs established for Eidul Azha are separate to the 23 permanent sites established at inter-provincial boundaries with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,Sindh and Balochistan,` Mr Khizer added.The districts include Attock, Mianwali, Bhakkar, DG Khan, Rajanpur, RY Khan, Multan, Faisalabad, Lahore and Siallcot.

Addressing participants of the meeting, the programme`s head expressed hope that deployment of polio teams will be helpful in preventing polio virus reinfection. The EOC coordinator stressed on training of all teams deployed at transit points. The EOC head appealed to parents to cooperate with polio teams at transit sites. `As understood, people are travelling to their native towns to celebrate Eid with their loved ones.

But it is also necessary that children are given polio drops when they are travelling. The administration will help prevent polio virus movement from one place to another,` the EOC head underlined.

Punjab had previously deployed polio teams at major key locations on Eidul Fitr. It had developed a comprehensive monitoring plan which was approved by the EOC coordinator. He directed officials to ensure that polio teams are properly monitored as per the devised plan.

Punjab has been polio-free since the last two years but polio environmental samples collected from two sites tested positive in Lahore this year in January.

The positive samples indicate that polio still remains a threat to children unless it is eradicated from the last two endemic countries including Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistan reported a polio case from Bannu this year which is located in the south Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region where most cases were reported last year. Aamir Yasin