Over 33 million Pak kids to be inoculated against polio from today

Over 33 million children in Pakistan will be administered with polio vaccine during from today till Thursday.

According to the Dawn, a majority of the 7.6 million children in the country's Sindh Province will be inoculated against polio during the four-day campaign beginning on Monday.

Dr. Zafar Ijaz, Director (Health) for the Karachi division, said arrangements to provide security to more than 6,000 teams in Karachi have been taken.

Stringent security measures are in place in volatile areas like Gadap and Baldia Towns, where polio workers and doctors had been attacked several times.

Polio campaigns had been abruptly ended in Karachi more than once after attacks on a World health Organisation doctor and several polio vaccinators over the years.

Karachi is the city where health officials have recorded most refusals to the immunisation campaign than other large cities of the country. Almost all refusals came from the growing Pakhtun population in the metropolis.

As many as 761 polio cases have been detected over the past 17 years in Sindh, official figures show.

The National Immunization Drives were started in 1994 to eradicate the lethal disease.

Last year the disease crippled 10 children in Sindh.

Since June 1 when the World Health Organisation (WHO) imposed travel restrictions on Pakistan for its staggeringly high contribution to polio cases in the world, the country has recorded 93 polio cases out of which nine were reported in Sindh.

Pakistan now carries a huge burden of 174 polio cases: 121 from Federally Administered Tribal Areas, 31 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 15 from Sindh, five from Balochistan and two from Punjab.