The three-day drive goals to immunise greater than 44 million youngsters underneath the age of 5 towards the viral illness.
Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan has launched its first nationwide anti-polio marketing campaign for the yr, aiming to immunise greater than 44 million youngsters underneath the age of 5 to guard them from the viral illness.
The three-day marketing campaign began on Monday in additional than 150 districts of the nation, which together with Afghanistan are the one two international locations the place the debilitating neurodegenerative illness continues to be endemic.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday formally inaugurated the marketing campaign at an occasion within the capital Islamabad, the place he additionally administered polio drops to youngsters.
“I've the conviction that every one the provincial governments together with the federal authorities will proceed collaborating to eradicate the illness endlessly,” Sharif mentioned in his deal with on the ceremony.
Sharif mentioned a resurgence of the virus has raised international considerations, together with from the World Well being Group (WHO) and different stakeholders.
“Sadly, Pakistan was among the many few international locations the place polio circumstances had resurfaced,” an announcement from the prime minister’s workplace mentioned.
“Just a few years again, throughout the federal government of Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, these circumstances had been utterly eradicated,” it mentioned, referring to his elder brother and a former prime minister.
The yr 2021 noticed only one new case of polio in Pakistan, elevating hopes of success in its battle towards the illness. Nevertheless, that quantity rose to twenty in 2022, all of them detected within the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Seventeen of these circumstances had been discovered within the tribal-dominated district of North Waziristan whereas three others had been noticed within the Lakki Marwat district.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are but to be declared freed from the Wild Poliovirus kind 1 (WPV-1) illness.
To be formally recognised as polio-free, a rustic should present an absence of untamed poliovirus transmission for at the least three consecutive years, in response to the World Polio Eradication Initiative.
An official of the Nationwide Emergency Operations Centre informed Al Jazeera the present nationwide marketing campaign is the primary since Could final yr.
“We had been supposed to start out a nationwide marketing campaign in August final yr however because of the floods, we couldn't achieve this. Now we're aiming to utilise greater than 350,000 well being staff to not solely present polio drops but in addition extra vitamin-A complement,” he mentioned on situation of anonymity.
Pakistan was hit by catastrophic floods final yr, which affected 33 million folks and killed greater than 1,700. Many, together with youngsters, have died of waterborne ailments brought on by the stagnant floodwaters.
Pakistan’s struggle towards polio has typically confronted resistance from non secular and armed teams who allege the vaccination programme is a part of a “Western conspiracy” to sterilise the nation’s youngsters. Some additionally declare the vaccines include pig fats, making them not halal, although officers have rejected such rumours.
Greater than 100 folks related to the polio immunisation marketing campaign have been killed and plenty of others wounded throughout the nation previously decade.
The newest such assault passed off on January 5 throughout a provincial anti-polio marketing campaign when 4 policemen had been injured in Dera Ismail Khan district of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Resistance to polio vaccines in some areas of Pakistan additionally gained power following the 2011 killing of al-Qaeda’s former chief Osama bin Laden by the USA army within the Pakistani metropolis of Abbottabad.
In an effort to monitor bin Laden, the CIA had organised a pretend polio vaccination drive within the space.
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