KARACHI: The unpublicised polio campaigns in some neighbourhoods of the city planned for Saturday could not be undertaken by the authorities because of the ‘strike’ called by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement against the alleged extrajudicial killing of one of its workers, officials said.
“Our volunteers had to inoculate children less than five years in some union councils of the city, which they could not undertake because of the strike in the city,” said an official in the provincial health department.
Officials in the expanded programme on immunisation (EPI) of Sindh corroborated the fact by adding that they had plans to target 40 ‘sensitive’ union councils of the city from Monday. “Polio drives in certain areas of Karachi could not continue today, but we have plans to target some 40 union councils in the city from Monday,” said Dr Durre Naz Jamal, deputy chief of the EPI Sindh while speaking to Dawn.
She said the short-interval campaigns would also be carried out in districts of Sindh, including Jamshoro, Larkana and Hyderabad.
“We have plans for those districts, yet for Karachi we will be depending upon the availability of security as our volunteers will go when they are duly secured by the police in targeted areas,” she said.