Polio vaccination drive ends in Quetta

  • November 4, 2016, 9:48 pm
  • Breaking News
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Polio vaccination drive ends in Quetta

QUETTA, Nov 04 (APP): 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.