MULTAN - Citing the example of casualties of children caused by measles in Sindh, the district administration stressed upon the citizens on Saturday to get their kids vaccinated against contagious and other dangerous diseases like polio and measles. The additional district collector Mudassar Riaz Malik, while chairing a meeting to review arrangements for upcoming polio vaccination drive, said that hundreds of children from rural areas of Sindh were suffering from measles while dozens had so far lost their lives. "This al1l happened because their parents refused to get them vaccinated," he claimed. He asked the parents to get their children vaccinated against polio during the upcoming three-day drive starting from January 14.
He directed health officials to evolve a list of teams and send them to the DCO and CPO for the security of the health workers. He said that the security of the workers would be ensured and anyone attempting to harass them would be arrested.
Earlier, EDO Health Dr Iftikhar Qureshi told the meeting that special arrangements were made to vaccinate over 0.7 million children in Multan district. He said that a total of 1,760 teams were formed for vaccination drive out of which 1,468 would be mobile ones to go door to door for vaccination. Similarly, 156 other teams will be deployed at all health outlets while another 136 at all railway stations, bus stands and airport.
POLICY TO ENSURE ENROLMENT IN SCHOOLS: On the special directives of the Punjab Chief Minister regarding enrolment of all children at schools, the district administration has devised a policy to achieve the goal. It was disclosed during a meeting held under the topic of "Basic Education Born Right of Each Kid" here at Circuit House on Saturday. The Additional Commissioner Coordination Maqbool Ahmad Abbasi told the meeting that the district administration asked the education department to evolve complete record of those children who did not attend any school and convince their parents to send their kids to the educational institutions. "Majority of our population doesn't send their children to the schools. It's a national dilemma," he lamented.  He said that most of the out of school children fell prey to social menaces like begging and child labour. He said that the Punjab Government had launched a massive awareness creation drive under which NGOs would also be given an active role.