Over 3.3m children to be vaccinated against polio in special drive.

KARACHI -- A meeting was held on Friday to discuss measures for the special polio immunisation drive being launched in the province's high-risk union councils from June 27.

The meeting, chaired by Chief Secretary Dr Muhammad Sohail Rajput, was attended by Karachi Commissioner Muhammad Iqbal Memon, provincial coordinator for emergency operations Fayyaz Abbasi and WHO representatives, among others, at Sindh Secretariat.

Mr Abbasi informed the meeting that a total of 3.3 million children of high-risk UCs of Karachi, Hyderabad and other districts of Sindh would be vaccinated during the drive in which over 30,000 workers would participate.

The immunisation campaign, he said, would be followed by another drive to be launched in Larkana, Sukkur, and Shaheed Benazirabad in selected high-risk UCs from June 29.

Over 385,000 children were vaccinated against polio at the transit point of the province out of which 9,010 children belonged to south Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where this year 10 cases of the virus had been reported.

The chief secretary directed officials to ensure vaccination of every child entering the province, engage the community in the drives and counsel parents reluctant to get their children vaccinated.

No case of polio has been reported in Sindh in two years.

Govt to engage stakeholders to eliminate polio

In a move to share awareness about polio vaccination, the Sindh government has decided to involve academia, medical fraternity and pharmaceutical firms to cover all missed children and asked stakeholders to play their part in achieving target of crippling disease free Pakistan.

In a statement, the Emergency Operations Centre for Polio Eradication Initiative, Sindh said that it had signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with PharmEvo in line with constant efforts...