Special polio drive ends as cricket stars pay tribute to polio workers

LAHORE    -    Punjab has wrapped a week-long spe­cial polio campaign in 13 districts of Punjab, which was aimed at building immunity of children in high-risk dis­tricts. On Sunday, polio teams visited house-to-house and vaccinated left­over children who had missed polio drops in the last one week due to vari­ous reasons. In the last push on Sun­day, large number of guests and missed children were vaccinated in three Punjab districts including Lahore, Rawalpindi and Faisalabad. In the last six days of the campaign, polio teams have vaccinated more than 11.5 mil­lion children in all the 13 districts. In Lahore, more than two million children have been vaccinated. In Rawalpindi and Faisalabad, 0.9 million and 1.5 mil­lion children have been vaccinated in six days of the campaign respectively. In a statement issued on Sunday, the last day of the campaign, head of the polio porgramme in Punjab Khizer Af­zaal Ch asserted that all objectives of the campaign have been achieved. He reiterated that the government aimed to build immunity of children through the campaign so that polio virus trans­mission was interrupted. The EOC head called on polio teams to focus on children belonging to high-risk mobile communities. The polio programme head cautioned that virus could spread with the movement of mobile and high-risk communities. EOC head Khizer stressed that Pakistan was working on stopping polio virus transmission in 2023 and emphasized that two drops of polio vaccine every campaign was the correct decision made by parents. 

Earlier, PSL franchise Lahore Qa­landars organized a ceremony in Qaddafi Stadium during innings break to show their support for polio teams. During the ceremony Lahore Qalandars players posed for a group photograph. The Qalandars captain fast bowler Shaheen Afridi adminis­tered polio drops to children. He was joined by Afghan spin wizard Rashid Khan and all-rounder David Wiese. The ceremony was dedicated to Paki­stan and Afghanistan polio teams which are battling against the virus in the last remaining two polio endemic countries on globe.