By Staff Reporter
PESHAWAR: The anti-polio drive’s first phase kicked off in the six southern districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on Monday.
More than a million youngsters under the age of five will receive the polio vaccine and Vitamin A supplements in Lakki Marwat, D.I. Khan, North Waziristan, South Waziristan and Tank, according to the officials.
Plan to eradicate polio
The provincial government has developed a specific plan to eradicate the virus from southern areas, where most cases were reported last year.
One of only two nations (the other being Afghanistan) in which wild virus type 1 (WPV1) transmission has never been controlled in Pakistan.
WPV1 cases in Pakistan declined from 147 in 2019 and 84 in 2020 to one case in 2021, but as of July 31, 2022, they had climbed to 14 cases. Total 20 cases of polio virus reported in Pakistan last year and all of them were from KPK including 17 from North Waziristan, 2 Lakki Marwat and 1 from South Waziristan.
