More than 8,000 police personnel have been deployed in Karachi to provide security to vaccination teams during the week-long anti-polio campaign running from 2 to 8 November. Karachi Commissioner Syed Hassan Naqvi said safeguarding vaccination teams had been heavily prioritised following past security incidents and attacks during immunisation drives.
The campaign is also under way in other parts of Pakistan, including Balochistan, where teams are operating in 31 districts under heightened security measures. The drive began a day after the National Emergency Operations Centre confirmed a new polio case from Khyber district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, taking the year’s total to eight.
Health workers, mostly women who are allowed inside homes, go door to door from 8am to 5pm asking whether any child under five needs the drops, covering 80 to 90 homes per district team each day. Each team is accompanied by a support team including police and staff from the commissioner’s office and the provincial health department. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries where polio remains endemic, according to the World Health Organisation.
Sources: The Hindu, Dawn. Written in our own words for information only.