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Anti-Polio Campaign Commences Amid High Alert in Peshawar

by Himabindu Venkatakrishnan on Feb 3 2014 12:05 PM

 Anti-Polio Campaign Commences Amid High Alert in Peshawar
Anti-polio vaccination campaign has started in Pakistan's Peshawar city and nearby areas on Sunday along with heavy securtiy, says a media report.
The authorities suspended mobile phone services and banned pillion-riding citing security reasons. The ban would be effective from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, Dawn News reported.

The polio drive aims to inoculate 800,000 children, aged below five years in Peshawar and adjoining areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Teachers in the province had refused to take part in a polio-vaccination campaign citing low wages and security concerns as the reasons and agreed to resume the services only after the successful negotiations with the government.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) Jan 17 had declared Peshawar as the world's "largest reservoir" of endemic polio and called for urgent action to boost vaccination. According to the WHO, 80,000 children in Pakistan have not been immunised against polio.

About 22,000 of these children hail from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Efforts to eradicate it have been seriously hampered by the deadly attacks of militant groups who see vaccination campaigns as a cover for espionage, and there are also long running rumours about polio drops causing infertility.

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