Summary About 400 fixed and mobile teams have been formed to administer polio drops to children.
PESHAWAR (Web Desk) – Authorities on Saturday launched a special anti-polio drive to vaccinate more than seven lakh children in Peshawar today (Saturday).
The Provincial Health Department has set a target to administer polio drops to more than 750,000 children below the age of five years during the campaign.
For this purpose, about 400 fixed and mobile teams have been formed while district administration has chalked out a comprehensive security plan to ensure their security. One day ban on motorcycle riding has also been imposed.
More than 5,500 security personnel have been deployed to avert any untoward incident.
The World Health Organisation declared a global "public health emergency" in early May after new polio cases began surfacing and spreading across borders from countries including Pakistan.
Pakistan is one of only three countries, along with Afghanistan and Nigeria, where the crippling disease remains endemic. But violence has badly hampered the campaign to stamp out polio in Pakistan, where militant groups with strongholds in tribal areas -- including the Threek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) -- see vaccination campaigns as a cover for espionage.
Dozens of health workers and police providing security have been killed in militant attacks on polio vaccination teams in Pakistan since December 2012.
