RAWALPINDI: District Health Officer (DHO) Rawalpindi, Dr. Ehsan Ghani has said that no case of polio has been reported in the last 14 months in the whole country and in order to achieve polio free status it is necessary that no case of polio be reported for three consecutive years.
While briefing about the polio campaign that will start from February 28 (Monday), he said that Rawalpindi is a high risk district in terms of polio so six anti-polio campaigns are run in a year and in non-high risk districts three campaigns are run in a year.
Dr. Ehsan Ghani said that significant achievements have been made in Rawalpindi regarding polio and since April 2021, no polio virus has been found in the environmental samples of Rawalpindi and this proves that the quality of polio campaign in Rawalpindi is satisfactory.
He said that the process of migration of population in different cities of Rawalpindi district is very high due to which according to the records of Health Department Rawalpindi 1.8% children are deprived of polio vaccine every year but these children must be vaccinated in other cities.
The DHO Rawalpindi said that there are some settlements in Rawal Town, Pothohar Town and Taxila in Rawalpindi district where some children are deprived of polio vaccines due to various reasons. He said that every effort is being made to pay special attention to these areas and achieve 100% results.
Dr. Ehsan said that the number of refusal cases in Rawalpindi district has also come down significantly and there are only seven children in the entire district who have been deprived of polio vaccines and could not be vaccinated due to medical issues.
