Pakistan to start polio vaccination to immunize 21 mln children

ISLAMABAD, March 12 (Xinhua) -- A polio vaccination campaign to immunize more than 21.54 million children under the age of five will kick off in Pakistan's southern Sindh province and eastern Punjab province on Monday, the Pakistani Health Ministry said.

In the first phase of the drive, more than 17 million children during the five-day campaign from March 13 to March 17 would be vaccinated in 13 districts of Punjab, 16 districts of Sindh and the federal capital Islamabad, the ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

The second phase would be held from April 3 to April 7 to vaccinate more than 4 million children in 12 districts of southwest Balochistan province and 26 districts of northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, including the seven endemic districts in the southern region of KP, it added.

Pakistani Health Minister Abdul Qadir Patel urged parents and caregivers to ensure that their children receive the life-saving polio vaccine so that they remain protected from poliovirus.

"The presence of wild polio in the environment shows that the virus is circulating in our communities and posing a serious risk to our children," the minister was quoted as saying in a statement.

Wild poliovirus was detected for the first time this year in sewage samples collected from two separate sites in Punjab's capital Lahore in January, said the ministry.

Two more samples have since then tested positive for polio -- wild polio was detected in a sample collected from the Dera Ismail Khan district of KP and a variant poliovirus was detected from the Ghotki district of Sindh, according to the statement.