ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) – Pakistani fitness officials presented a seven-day polio vaccination crusade on Saturday as a component of efforts to combat debilitating disease amid a steady decline in coronavirus deaths and infections that had recently overcome the country’s fragility. fitness care system.
The polio campaign, which began amid increased security, aims to vaccinate up to 34 million young people across Pakistan, adding former Taliban strongholds on the border with Afghanistan, according to a government statement.
It was noted that medical personnel participating in the polio crusade adhered to social estrangement regulations because they wore masks and gloves while going from space to space for an increase in coronavirus cases.
“I hope that parents will continue to understand the importance of vaccinating their children in this campaign,” said Faisal Sultan, the Prime Minister’s fitness adviser.
According to Rana Safdar, who runs the government’s polio control program, polio campaigns will be introduced in October, November and December.
Early Saturday, Pakistan’s military said Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates praised Islamabad’s good fortune in the fight against coronavirus in a phone call to the country’s army chief, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa. He said Gates had also discussed the resumption of the polio campaign.
Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria are the 3 countries in the world where polio, a debilitating and life-threatening disease through the polio virus, remains endemic. The Bill and Melinda Gates nonprofit foundation has helped Pakistan and other parts of the world fight the disease.
Pakistan hoped to eliminate the disease until 2018, when only 12 cases were reported. But there was an uptick in new cases the following year. Since January, Pakistan has reported about 100 new polio cases in parts of the country, adding afghanistan’s northwestern border region.
Pakistani Taliban and other militants launch attacks on polio groups and security forces that escort them because they claim the polio crusade is part of an alleged Western plot to sterilize young people or gather intelligence. Attacks on polio groups have increased after it was revealed that a false hepatitis vaccination crusade had been used as a ruse through the CIA in the search for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden was killed via U.S. commandos in 2011 in Pakistan.
Pakistan ended the polio crusade in March and resumed it a month amid a decline in COVID-19 infections and deaths.
On Saturday, Pakistan reported nine new deaths from the new virus in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of COVID-1nine deaths in the country to 6,162. So far, Pakistan has reported 288,047 cases and authorities say that about 9% of patients have recovered since February, when the country reported its first case shown.