LAHORE: Punjab is hoping to get 20 million children under the age of five years vaccinated against the crippling polio virus after it was detected in the Lahore.

About 200,000 teams started the five-day campaign in Lahore, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi on Monday. For the other cities it will take three days followed by catch-up days.

This campaign was started in Punjab, however, because the National Institute of Health detected strains in the environment in Lahore, among other cities in July. Federal Health Minister Qadir Patel had announced back then that a vaccine campaign would be rolled out August 22. So far in 2022 no cases have surfaced in Punjab.

This virus is of two types, the wild polio and the vaccine-derived polio. So far this year, 14 cases of the wild polio virus have been detected in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are the two countries left in the world where polio still cripples children.

In 2014, the WHO decided to impose travel restrictions on Pakistan with the continuous rise in numbers. The WHO recommends people travelling to Pakistan be vaccinated and people and visitors from infected parts of Pakistan should receive additional doses.

In June, the NIH and Nadra launched a certificate system for polio and yellow fever vaccinations for people who need to meet international requirements. You can download the certificate for a Rs100 fee.

The WHO says that of the 3 strains of wild poliovirus (type 1, 2 and 3), the wild poliovirus type 2 was eradicated in 1999 and no case of wild poliovirus type 3 has been found since the last reported case in Nigeria in 2012. Both strains have officially been certified as globally eradicated. As at 2020, wild poliovirus type 1 affects only Pakistan and Afghanistan.