ISLAMABAD, Under the umbrella of the National Emergency Operations Centre, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) supported 14 polio vaccination campaigns in Pakistan in 2020.
A UNICEF Pakistan document, which is available with APP revealed that these campaigns provided 97.8 per cent of 39 million targeted children with oral polio vaccination, a crucial step in the effort to eradicate polio worldwide.
UNICEF procured 302 million doses of polio vaccine, which ensured 100 per cent vaccine availability for all campaigns. A nimble, responsive polio communication strategy, with targeted research on why parents do not allow their children to be vaccinated, resulted in vaccine refusals declining from 0.47 per cent in February to 0.33 per cent by November 2020, the document said.
The complex communication infrastructure developed to support polio eradication over the years provided a foundation for quickly developing effective COVID-19 data management and surveillance systems, the report said.
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