Chief Minister kick offs launches anti-polio drive to cover over 9m children.

KARACHI -- The Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said that Pakistan was one of the two polio-endemic countries in the world along with Afghanistan and has so far reported a total of one polio case in 2021 from Baluchistan, while no case has been reported in province of Sindh this year as compared to 22 cases in 2020.

This, he said on Monday while talking to media just after inaugurating a seven-day province-wide polio campaign at Government Dispensary, Sultanabad. Minister Health Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho, Secretary Health Kazim Jatoi and EOC In-charge were also present on the occasion.

Shah said that the Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for polio was launching a province-wide polio campaign from June 7 to June 13 2021, as part of the sub national immunization days, to give oral polio drops to over 9 million children of 5-years across the province.

'This campaign will be conducted in all 30 districts of Sindh, '' he informed and added that out of over nine million children, more than two million belonged to Karachi.

'The campaign will be conducted whilst following strict WHO recommended COVID prevention protocols which include the wearing of masks by workers, their temperatures being checked before deployment, not handling children directly, not entering houses, spending limited time with families, and knocking on doors with pens, rulers or elbows rather than hands, ' the CM said.

The CM said that ' as a result of the pandemic, the gap in campaigns from March to July 2020 coupled with routine immunization being affected left an immunity gap in children which we have been addressing through back-to-back monthly polio campaigns since August 2020.'

Thanks to these quality campaigns conducted by district polio teams, Sindh has not reported a single case of polio since July 2020 and environment samples are also now showing a negative trend which is good for the programme and the future of the children of Pakistan, Murad Ali Shah said.

He further added 'If we continue with the same momentum, we will further see significant results, but we must not get complacent and continue the hard work.'

"We understand the communities living in the high-risk Union Councils for polio are in dire of need...