Four-day anti-polio drive kicks off in Muzaffarabad

MUZAFFARABAD: (Parliament Times) Azad Jammu and Kashmir government is taking measures to ensure that the infants 5 and below are administered anti-polio drops to make the State polio-free.
In Muzaffarabad four-day anti-polio drive kicks off from December 10. Public health department’s teams would go house to house in the district to administer polio drops to the toddlers up to 5 years during the drive. All necessary arrangements to this effect have been finalized by the health department.
A meeting was held in the office of deputy commissioner Muzaffarabad on Monday to review all arrangements to make the anti-polio campaign a success. It was attended by officials of district administration, police and public health department.
District health officer Dr. Kamran Riaz Dar told that 124249 infants would be administered polio vaccine drops during the drive. For this purpose, 384 mobile teams would be constituted while 62 fixed sides and 19 transit points would be set up. The fixed sides and transit points would remain opened from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
29 Zonal Supervisors and 91 Area Incharges have been appointed for the anti-polio drive who will monitor the mobile teams and would provide them vaccines and other necessary material. They will also obtain the record of their daily performance every evening and forward it to district control rooms, set up for the purpose.
Dar further told that the basic objective of this four-day drive is to eliminate polio from the AJK State. He also appealed to the teachers, lawyers, members of civil society, parents, government employees and people of all walks of life to fully cooperate with the anti-polio teams during the drive. Dar claimed that AJK has been free from polio for the last 18 years.
The people of district Muzaffarabad have been asked to contact at 921959-05822 or 8091525-0347 in case polio teams could not reach anyone’s house or take the children to nearest EPI center for anti-polio drops, says a press release of Public Health Department.
Meanwhile another meeting to administer anti-polio drops to infants was held at Rawalakot which was addressed by deputy commissioner Poonch Shaukat Yousufzai and DHO Dr. Sardar Muhammad Daud Khan.
Dr. Daud told the meeting that district Poonch had been divided into 42 units to make the anti-polio drive a success. He said 296 mobile teams have been formed in 27 union councils of four tehsils of district Poonch. 89155 infants of 5 or below would be administered anti-polio drops during the four-day drive, he added.