Pakistan launches new anti-polio campaign amid surge in cases

Authorities in Pakistan have launched a new nationwide anti-poliomyelitis campaign amid a surge in new cases among children, health officials said.

The sixth such event this year will last five days and aim to vaccinate children under five in high-risk areas.

The latest operation targeted Islamabad as well as high-risk areas in eastern Punjab and southwestern Balochistan.

A similar event will take place in the North West during the first week of December.

Pakistan has regularly launched polio campaigns despite attacks on workers and police officers assigned to vaccinate.

Activists falsely claim that the vaccination campaign is a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.

Pakistan has registered 20 new cases of polio since April, with the outbreak seen as a blow to efforts to eradicate the disease, which can severely paralyze children.

Pakistan came close to eradicating polio last year when only one case was reported.

Since then, new cases have been reported in the Northwest Territories, forcing the government to conduct anti-polio campaigns in high-risk areas of the country at regular intervals.

The latest such campaign was launched earlier this month.

Pakistan’s anti-polio campaign is also backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which last month pledged $1.2bn (£991m) to end polio globally.

The funding will be used for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s strategy until 2026.

The foundation said last month that the initiative aims to end polio in Pakistan and Afghanistan, two of the last endemic countries.