ISLAMABAD: The National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) has informed that more than seven million, or 24.9% of the targeted 28.7 million children, were vaccinated against poliovirus during the first day of an ongoing countrywide campaign.
According to details, Pakistan launched the week-long vaccination campaign on Monday in 99 high-risk districts across the country. NEOC said that their target was to vaccinate 28.7 million children under the age of five against poliovirus.
The ongoing anti-polio drive is set to conclude on Sept. 7.
Polio is a highly infectious and incurable disease that can cause lifelong paralysis. The only protection is repeated doses of oral vaccine for every child under five, along with timely routine immunizations.
Pakistan has reported 24 polio cases so far this year including 16 from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), six from the southern Sindh province and one each from Punjab and northern Gilgit Baltistan (GB).
According to the NEOC, 30% of children were vaccinated in Punjab, 22% in Sindh, 29% in KP, 20% in Balochistan, 18% in Islamabad, 21% in GB and 31% in Azad Kashmir on Monday.
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Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries where polio remains endemic. Pakistan has made significant progress in curbing the virus in the past, with annual cases dropping from around 20,000 in the early 1990s to just eight in 2018.
