ISLAMABAD: Pakistani authorities have vaccinated over 43.3 million children of up to five years of age in the first five days of its nationwide anti-polio campaign, state media reported this week amid Islamabad’s attempts to rid the country of the crippling disease.
Pakistan launched the week-long campaign this Monday, with officials aiming to reach over 45 million children across Pakistan amid its efforts to eradicate the paralytic disease. Pakistan is one of only two countries alongside Afghanistan where wild poliovirus still remains endemic.
State broadcaster Radio Pakistan said that as per statistics, over 22.9 million children have received the oral polio vaccine in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province while approximately 10.2 million children have been immunized in southern Sindh. It said in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), over 6.1 million children have been vaccinated while in Balochistan, over 2.5 million have received the vaccine.
In Islamabad, around 443,000 children while in Gilgit-Baltistan nearly 294,000 and in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, over 733,000 have received the anti-polio vaccine.
“The ongoing national campaign aims to vaccinate over 45 million children and will continue uninterrupted until tomorrow [Sunday],” Radio Pakistan reported on Saturday.
