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Pakistan's Premier Multilingual News Agency

21 million children to receive polio vaccine

A five-day vaccination campaign starts today

Islamabad, 13 March 2023 (GNP): Today, Sindh and Punjab will launch a polio vaccine to immunize more than 21.54 million children under the age of five.

Because of the seventh national census’s concurrent activities, the five-day vaccination campaign is being held in two phases.

From March 13 to March 17, around 17.41 million children under the age of five will receive vaccinations in 13 districts of Punjab, 16 districts of Sindh, and Islamabad.

To vaccinate over 4.12 million children across 26 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 12 districts of Balochistan, including the seven outskirts in the southern region, the second phase will take place from April 3 to 7 during the second week of Ramadan.

Abdul Qadir Patel, the federal minister of health, asked parents and guardians to make sure that their kids get the potentially life-saving polio vaccine so they can continue to be protected from the virus, which has been discovered to be prevalent in environmental samples.

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According to Qadir Patel, “The presence of wild polio in the environment shows that the virus is circulating in our communities and posing a serious risk to our children,”

Parents and carriers must immunize their children during this and every campaign since population movements around Ramadan and Eid could raise the danger of additional spreading.

Since September 2022, when a polio outbreak crippled 20 youngsters in southern K-P regions, no human cases have been confirmed in Pakistan.

For the first time this year, wild poliovirus was found in samples of sewage taken in January from two different locations in Lahore.

Since then, two other samples have been found positive for polio: a sample taken from Dera Ismail Khan contained a wild strain of the disease, and a sample from Ghotki included a mutant poliovirus.

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Considering positive environmental sample results found in some locations, the polio program has tried to ensure that children receive the vaccinations to protect them from this highly contagious disease.

Polio is a highly contagious disease caused by the poliovirus, which primarily affects children under the age of five. It attacks the neurological system and might result in death or paralysis. Although there is no known treatment for polio, immunization is the most reliable method of shielding youngsters from the debilitating condition.

The level of protection against the virus rises with each vaccination given to a child under the age of five.

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