KARACHI: The health authorities postponed the ninth round of one-day special polio campaign on Sunday in ‘sensitive’ neighbourhoods of the city for a week as they could not get the security cover for host of reasons, officials said on Sunday.
The special campaign on Sundays was launched two months ago especially to target areas where children had missed out polio boosters because of security situation.
“We could not continue with our schedule of Sunday campaigns because we could not get the security cover from authorities,” said a senior official in the provincial health department.
He said the city was already in chaos because of an attack on known journalist Hamid Mir and arrival of former military ruler retired Gen Pervez Musharraf.
A large number of security personnel were already assigned security duties for a visit of the prime minister, who was expected to arrive late in the evening, and keeping in view the limited number of security personnel it would be difficult to provide security to vaccinators, officials said.
The officials said they had been targeting more than half-a-million children in every campaign, in which they targeted some other areas apart from those they had publicised in a bid to enhance their efforts to end the scourge of the disease.
The areas, which were to be covered included Gadap UC 4, 5 and 8, Gulshan UC 10, 11, 12 and 13, Baldia UC 1, 2, 3 and 4, Orangi UC 1, 2 and 13, SITE UC 7, 8 and 9, Bin Qasim UC 2, 3 and 4, Landhi UC 1 and 2, Saddar UC 9 and Gulberg UC 8.