Ashrafuddin Pirzada
LANDIKOTAL: A special polio vaccination campaign called Fractional Injectable Polio Vaccination (FIPV) drive is underway in different parts of district Khyber to boost the immunity of children to protect them from an environmental sample of poliovirus detected in Naray Khwar area of Peshawar adjacent to district Khyber, polio officials said on Sunday.
District Khyber polio communication Officer Said Afzal Shinwari told Fata Voice news Agency that the special anti-polio campaign commenced on the 15th of August and will continue till August 21. He said children up to the age of five years would be vaccinated in a week-long campaign.
He said during the ongoing campaign polio teams would vaccinate more than 1.9 million children in district Khyber. He said a total of 965 field polio teams have been constituted who were conducting door-to-door visits across the entire district of Khyber. He said the polio staff trained through a specialized training program for the current polio drive.
He thanked the local administration and police for their support in escorting the polio teams. He said the anti-polio campaign was successfully underway across the district without any major incidents. He said no refusals of polio vaccination or boycott at the community level surfaced so far.
He said in the past weeks they had conducted community mobilization and sensitization sessions at the village level in which a large number of youth, tribal elders, and religious and political influencers including refusals parents participated.
