The 5-day anti-polio drive successfully concluded in Azad Jammu & Kashmir’s (AJK) two major districts including Mirpur and Muzaffarabad on Friday, the health authorities said.
The campaign continued till June 11, without any break. In Mirpur, mobile teams visited door-to-door to administer anti-polio drops to achieve a set target of 63741 children under five years of age.
The drive commenced in AJK’s two major districts with collaboration of the World Health Organization (WHO), the state health services spokesperson told APP.
The health authorities said no polio case had emerged anywhere in AJK for the last two decades and added that Mirpur district comprised the total population of 438,319 persons which included over 63 thousand children under five years of age.
As reported earlier, the district was divided into 28 zones with the induction of one supervisor in each zone to implement the drive”, he said, adding that one Ward Incharge supervised the campaign in the determined area falling in each Union Council in the district.
A total of 70 Union Councils / Ward Incharges looked after the campaign in all 70 union councils in the district.
Elaborating the district-wise anti-polio drive, said that a total of 286 mobile teams of paramedical staff involving over 450 paramedical workers immunized the children with the anti-polio drops.
The mobile teams, the health authorities said,visited door-to-door by strictly acting upon the Covid-19 SOPs, to administer anti-polio drops to children under five years of age.
The authorities have strongly suggested that there was an earnest need of accountability and commitment to this global cause for achieving the target for complete eradication of the fatal disease.
In Muzaffarabad, the target of 110137 children up to five years of age was set to administer anti-polio drops. A total of 31 zones have been demarcated for conducting door-to-door drive under the supervision of 114 areas in charge, the spokesman said.
The state health department’s polio eradication committee had made adequate arrangements to execute the polio-eradication campaign in a befitting manner.
Devised SOPs to avert any harm of the pandemic, especially wearing masks and using sanitizer were strictly implemented.
Parents were earlier advised to fully cooperate with the mobile teams by getting their children administered with the polio-vaccine by the mobile paramedical staff teams besides at the transit points for the kids traveling with their parents during the campaign.
The fixed centers were set up at the state-run hospitals, basic health units, rural health centers as well as various other spots to vaccinate the children with the anti-polio drops.
The total staff involved in the drive including mobile teams comprising over 4500 workers visited door-to-door to immunize the children of and under 5 years of age.
