Polio Vaccination Drive Ends In Quetta

QUETTA, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 04th Nov, 2016 ) : Provincial Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) Coordinator Syed Faisal Ahmed on Friday said Polio vaccination drive was successfully ended in district Quetta in which 0.5 million children received vaccination .

Quetta district remained one of the high risk areas in the country for polio. "The virus was found in the recent environmental samples taken from the sewage system of the city which is very alarming," Faisal Ahmed said.

He said massive population movement, pockets of missed children and fragile security situation were main challenges during the drive in the district. "Reaching every child was our main objective, and if one child remained unvaccinated he put at least 200 children living near him on risk for contracting polio," he said.

Faisal Ahmed said three main reasons of children being missed during a polio campaign, firstly teams not visiting every house, secondly child being away when team visited the house and thirdly parents refusing vaccination.

"To protect the children from the life time paralysis our teams were going door to door and we urge parents to ensure that their children were vaccinated during every campaign," he added. He said in a statement that 90-95 per cent of the reported vaccine refusals were covered during each campaign, in October campaign 4713 vaccine refusals were reported in district Quetta out of which 4082 children were successfully vaccinated with the health or religious scholars and district administration.