LAHORE:Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi appealed to the nation on Monday to contribute to establishing a polio-free society.
In his message on the world polio day, he said that polio continues to challenge lives by crippling children. “Today, we pledge to eradicate this disease fully from the province and the country,” he said.
The CM said parents were requested to give their children anti-polio drops to protect them from the dangerous disease. He said: “I salute the polio workers working as vanguards in this war. Disability is very painful but it could be avoided through polio vaccination.”
The CM noted that the fight against polio was the battle for the future of the nation’s youth. The special campaign to eradicate polio was started today [Monday] in Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Mianwali, Khushab, Sialkot, Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar, Layyah, Multan, Muzaffargarh, Rahim Yar Khan, Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur. This campaign would continue for seven days in Lahore, Rawalpindi, and Faisalabad and it would be run for five days in other districts, he added.
Giving further details, he said that more than 97,000 workers would administer anti-polio drops to 11.18 million children under five years of age. No polio case has been reported in Punjab for a long time, while its virus has been found in the environment of big cities including Lahore and Rawalpindi. The presence of the polio virus is a warning to parents to give their children two doses of the anti-polio vaccine during each campaign, he concluded.