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Polio

First day of anti-polio campaign passed sans hitch

AIMAN INAM

 

KARACHI: Amid fears of attacks by radicals the first day of the three-day anti-polio campaign has passed smoothly.

Commissioner Karachi, Syed Asif Haider Shah, who inaugurated the campaign on Monday, said that 2.2 million children would be administered the drops in 188 union councils.

He maintained that inadequate information about the perilous disease was the cause of most refusals.

Since few union councils are notorious to be hazardous for polio workers the Commissioner asked people to inform the concerned authorities at helpline 1299 in case a polio team fails to reach an area.

Sources talking to NewsPakistanTV held that malnutrition among kids augmented chances of infection. It has also been told by experts that over ten dosages of polio vaccine were necessary to develop children’s immune system.

Pakistan is one of the last three countries in the world where the disease still exists. One of the reasons is country’s porous borders that allow influx of carriers of virus who amalgamate in the populace.

Second reason is the propaganda that the drops were a western ploy to impede the Muslim population rendering them infertile.

In this scenario the Polio workers who risk their lives to administer drops are paid a meager sum of Rs. 250 per day.

 

 

 

M M Alam

M. M. Alam is a Pakistan-based working journalist since 1981. Karachi University faculty gold medalist Alam began his career four decades ago by writing for Dawn, Pakistan’s highest circulating English daily. He has worked for region’s leading publications, global aviation periodicals including Rotors (of USA) and vetted New York Times as permanent employee of daily Express Tribune. Alam regularly covers international aviation and defense-related events including Salon Du Bourget (France), Farnborough (United Kingdom), Dubai (UAE). Alam has reported thousands of events and interviewed hundreds of people in Pakistan, UAE, EU, UK and USA. Being Francophone Alam also coordinates with a number of French publications.