{"id":15858,"date":"2026-02-09T12:02:59","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T12:02:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/?p=15858"},"modified":"2026-02-09T12:02:59","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T12:02:59","slug":"around-a-million-children-missed-during-years-first-nationwide-polio-campaign-53000-refusals-reported","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/?p=15858","title":{"rendered":"Around a million children missed during year\u2019s first nationwide polio campaign; 53,000 refusals reported"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Around a million children were missed and 53,000 refusals were reported during the year\u2019s first nationwide polio campaign.<\/p>\n<p>The largest share of refusals, i.e. 58 per cent, was reported from Pakistan\u2019s largest city, Karachi. The campaign concluded on February 5 in most cities, while the campaign ran till February 8 in Sindh.<\/p>\n<p>During the campaign, polio drops were administered to more than 44.3 million children, marking a significant milestone in Pakistan\u2019s continued efforts to eradicate polio.<\/p>\n<p>While the data shows that the polio programme achieved overall household coverage of 98pc, with 2pc children missed, the number of missed children is still huge and worrisome given Pakistan\u2019s population.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, 0.95m children were reported as missed during the campaign. A large proportion of these (0.67m) were missed because children were not available at home at the time of vaccination.<\/p>\n<p>During the campaign, 2.5 million guest children were vaccinated, likely covering a substantial share of children recorded as not being available at home.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c233,000 children were reported as leftovers due to security constraints, community boycotts, and snow-bound areas,\u201d an official of the programme said, wishing not to be quoted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOf the total leftovers, 184,000 were from KP, including 113,000 from south KP. In AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan, around 50,000 children remained unreachable due to snow-bound areas and non-conduct of campaigns.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn Balochistan, the polio eradication campaign was postponed in Mastung, Gwadar, Chagai, and Awaran due to security reasons. 0.14pc of the total targeted children were reported as refusals, with 31,000 refusals from Karachi, forming the largest share,\u201d the official added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe National Emergency Operation Center (EOC) extends its sincere appreciation to all relevant stakeholders for their cooperation, commitment, and active participation in ensuring the successful implementation of the campaign,\u201d said a statement issued by the EOC.<\/p>\n<p>The statement said that in Punjab, more than 22.9m children were vaccinated. In Sindh, over 10.5m children, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, more than 7.13 million and in Balochistan, over 2.36m children were vaccinated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Around a million children were missed and 53,000 refusals were reported during the year\u2019s first nationwide polio campaign. The largest share of refusals, i.e. 58 per cent, was reported from Pakistan\u2019s largest city, Karachi. The campaign concluded on February 5 in most cities, while the campaign ran till February 8 in Sindh. During the campaign, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15859,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15858"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15860,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15858\/revisions\/15860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}