Crucial decisions to be made for polio drive amid boycott of medics.

Byline: Ashfaq Yusufzai

PESHAWAR -- The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is likely to make crucial decisions for the upcoming polio campaign to be kicked off on November 18 amid boycott by health workers.

'A crucial meeting of the task force is being held on Monday (today) to find ways to start the vaccination,' sources said. The plan to start polio vaccination has been hamstrung by the lingering strikes of the health workers, who have stopped providing all services to people including essential immunisation.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has registered 57 of the countrywide 77 polio cases this year so far. Bannu division is the epicentre of the poliovirus as it alone has recorded 42 cases and the violent outbreaks continues to infect more children.

The province desperately requires quality vaccination drive to ensure that all target children get vaccines and stop the outbreak but the protest by health workers has forced the government to ponder over the situation and devise ways and means to immunise children during the strike.

Task force holds meeting today to find ways for starting campaign on Nov 18

The World Health Organisation is concerned about prevalence of wild poliovirus in Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan, asking both countries to take measures to vaccinate all population and get rid of the virus.

On October 24, the WHO announced that type 3 wild poliovirus became the third human pathogen in history to be eradicated, following smallpox and type 2 wild poliovirus and only type 1 wild poliovirus remained in circulation.

Officials said that it was back in 1988 that Global Polio Eradication Initiative started efforts to eliminate the disease by 1998. The worldwide children infected with wild poliovirus stood at 22 only in 2017, the lowest in the history but the numbers climbed to 33 last year and 96 cases were reported so far in the current year just in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Both the countries are facing vaccine hesitancy as parents in specific areas are...

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