Rawalpindi - Though a three-day anti-polio drive will formally start from November 20, the district administration inaugurated the campaign at Dehri Hassanabad during a ceremony on Saturday.
The drive was scheduled to be inaugurated by Deputy Commissioner Talat Mehmood Gondal but he was busy in meetings and Additional Deputy Commissioner Finance Atif Rao gave vaccination to a three-year-old child at a dispensary.
District Health Authority Chief Executive Officer Dr Suhail Ahmed and other senior officials were present on the occasion. In Rawalpindi, Pirwadhai is declared the most critical area between Rawalpindi and Islamabad for the presence of polio’s active virus.
The WHO and UNICEF also stressed to focus on this area, as movement of people continued from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and other parts of the country.
Speaking on the occasion, the Additional Deputy Commissioner directed the health authority to pay attention to administer anti-polio vaccine to each and every child in the district in a view to save their lives from permanent disability.
He assured that the district administration would provide all the facilities to the teams in the district and solve their issues. He said that for the security of the teams, the police had been asked to make arrangements.
Dr Suhail Butt informed the deputy commissioner that the drive will start from November 20 to November 24 and 823,843 children in the 197 union councils of the district will be administered anti-polio vaccine.
He said that 287 teams had been deployed at permanent places while 124 mobile teams had been formed. He said