Three day anti-polio drive starts in Pakistan

A three-day polio immunisation drive kicked off in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, Pakistan on Saturday.

Children under the age of five years will be administered polio drops in 13 districts of the province during the immunisation campaign, Dawn online reported.

According to the polio monitoring cell the drive has started in Peshawar, Charsadda, Mardan, Nowshera, Swat, Kohat, Bannu, Hangu, Karak, Dera Ismail Khan, Lakki Marwat, Tank, and Torghar districts of the province.

Stringent security measures were adopted for the immunisation drive as militant groups often attack polio teams when they see vaccination campaigns.

Fata along with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was declared a hub of polio virus in Pakistan.

Pakistan is one of only three countries in the world where polio remains endemic.

This year, 15 polio cases have been reported from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 11 from Fata, six from Balochistan and four from Sindh.