Campaign To Vaccinate 9.9 Million Children Against Polio In Sindh

16-08-2022

Finia Hilmes

Pakistan & Human Rights Researcher

Global Human Rights Defence

On Monday, the Sindh government launched a one-week-long anti-polio campaign including a drive across the province to vaccinate over 9.9 million children under the age of five due to the threat of rising polio cases in the country (Dawn, 2022). Currently, Pakistan has reported 14 polio cases whereby all of them have been reported from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The Sindh Chief Minister, Murad Ali Shah, formally launched the drive at the National Institute of Child Health which shall continue until August 21, in Karachi and the Hyderabad divisions and shall then be extended from August 22 on to the Shaheed Benazirabad, Mirpurkhas, Sukkur and Larkana divisions (Dawn, 2022). According to the Sindh Chief Minister, the drive will include 33,982 teams along with 9,137 supervisors participating across the province supported by 3,556 partner staff from different organizations which will cover supportive supervision and monitoring (Dawn, 2022). 

Furthermore, the Sindh Chief Minister emphasizes the importance of polio vaccinations and raising awareness to protect children from the childhood paralyzing disease (Dawn, 2022). The efforts of the programme have so far resulted in around a 50 per cent reduction in refusal and missed children, however, the Sindh Chief Minister expressed that this reduction is not enough as well as more efforts should be made to bring the reduction and number of missing children further down especially in Karachi where 2.4 million children live (Dawn 2022).

Lastly, Murad Ali Shah pointed out the importance of vaccinations as polio as a disease does not have a cure but can be easily prevented through vaccinations helping to eradicate polio and overcome Pakistan’s polio endemic (Dawn, 2022).

 Sources and further reading: 

Siddiqui, T. (2022, August 16). Week-long drive to vaccinate 9.9m children against polio begins in Sindh. DAWN.COM. Retrieved August 16, 2022, from https://www.dawn.com/news/1705056/week-long-drive-to-vaccinate-99m-children-against-polio-begins-in-sindh