Peshawar starts six-day polio booster drive in 48 high-risk union councils

PESHAWAR: A six-day special polio booster campaign began in Peshawar on Monday, with health teams targeting 1,111,107 children aged between four months and ten years across 48 high-risk union councils of the district.

The District Emergency Operations Centre (DEOC) said preparations for the drive were complete, ARY News reported. Teams will administer booster doses at schools, health facilities and community vaccination points, and children aged five to 10 in the targeted union councils will also receive oral polio vaccine drops.

The campaign is intended to strengthen children's immunity against poliovirus and reduce its transmission, particularly in areas where the virus has been detected in environmental samples.

The DEOC has deployed 1,728 trained polio teams and 1,383 social mobilisers, and authorities have made security arrangements for the vaccination staff.

Officials cited recent polio cases in Khyber district and other parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including the infection of a 10-year-old child in Khyber, as evidence that the virus remains a threat and that older children also need protection.

Deputy Commissioner Peshawar Afaq Wazir asked parents to ensure that children in the four-month to ten-year age bracket receive the booster, saying it guards against permanent disability caused by polio. He also urged civil society leaders, medical professionals and religious scholars to support the campaign and help make sure every eligible child is covered.

Separately, the National Emergency Operations Centre said a sub-national polio campaign will run from November 2 to 8 in 97 selected districts across the country, targeting more than 23.9 million children under the age of five, the Associated Press of Pakistan reported. Vaccination teams will give oral polio vaccine drops during that round.

The two drives come as Pakistan's programme continues to trace the virus through environmental sampling and to respond district by district; the Peshawar round is confined to the union councils where risk is judged highest, while the November campaign covers selected districts nationwide.