Islamabad – A Pakistan official said on Monday that the country had launched an emergency anti-polio vaccination campaign as the total number of affected children rose to 58 in 2019.
Babar Atta, Head of Pakistan’s anti-polio programme, said three new cases of the crippling disease had been reported in the north-western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
He said a three-day vaccination campaign in 46 districts of the country was launched on August 26.
Atta said the campaign would target 8.5 million children across the country with major focus on the 29 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from where 44 new cases had been reported out of 58.
He said 4000 security personnel had been deployed for the campaign.
In April, 2019, a vaccination campaign ran into trouble when a viral fake video showed school children purported to have fallen ill after they were given the vaccine in north-western city of Peshawar.
Some parents refuse permission to administer the vaccine, fearing it might make their children sterile or cause other complications.
The UN-funded vaccination programme has helped Pakistan to control the spread of the disease.
The number of affected children came down to 12 in 2018, compared to 304 in 2014.
Militants have killed hundreds of health workers and police officials guarding them because they claim the vaccines are intended to make Muslim children sterile.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are among only a handful of countries in the world where polio is still prevalent.