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.