MULTAN: Punjab has deployed polio teams at key transit sites to ensure the vaccination of children travelling with their families to celebrate Eidul Fitr in their hometowns.
Keeping in view the magnitude of movement, polio teams have been deployed at 20 key sites in 14 high-risk districts. Districts, where polio teams have been deployed, include Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Multan, Dera Ghazi Khan, Rajanpur, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Sialkot, Bahawalpur, Mianwali, Bhakkar, Attock and Rahim Yar Khan.
Teams have been deputed mostly at railway stations and bus stands. Teams have also been deployed at the tourist destination, Fort Monroe.
These will perform their duties for one month in two shifts and ensure that no child remained unvaccinated.
The teams deployed at these sites are in addition to the human resource deployed at permanent polio transit sites set up at inter-provincial entry and exit sites as well as international airports.
Head of the polio programme, Khizer Afzaal Chaudhary, chaired a meeting on Tuesday to finalise the deployment of polio teams and locations of the special transit sites.
The Polio programme head expressed the hope that the deployment of polio teams will help prevent poliovirus reinfection.
He expressed his satisfaction that all the teams deployed during the Eid holidays have been given orientation.
He appealed to the parents to cooperate with polio teams at the transit sites. “as understood people are travelling to their native towns to celebrate Eid with their loved ones. But it is also necessary that children are given polio drops when they are travelling. The administration of drops will help prevent poliovirus circulation from one place to another”, the EOC head underlined.
Punjab is polio free for the last over two years. But polio environmental samples collected from two sites tested positive in Lahore this year in January, says a news release.