RAWALPINDI - A three-day anti-polio campaign in high-risk areas of the district will start today (Monday) to cover more than 200,000 children.
Under the drive, the polio teams will visit 27 union councils of Rawalpindi city, cantonment and Tehsil Taxila which have been declared  high-risk areas, Executive District Officer (EDO- Health), Dr Zafar Iqbal Gondal told APP here on Sunday.
He said reason for launching the special drive is presence of people coming from North Waziristan Agency and other parts of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa, especially after sewage samples collected from these areas indicated the presence of polio virus.
Gondal said that health department is tracing the whereabouts of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Rawalpindi, but there are problems due to lack of coordination among the local departments.
The EDO said, "1365 mobile teams have been constituted for door-to-door vaccination of the children. Besides special teams will be deployed at district entry points and bus terminals. Sufficient quantity of vaccine is available, and no stone will be left unturned to make the campaign a success."
In the recently concluded regular campaign, he said, 7,11,744 children upto five years age were administered polio drops to prevent the younger generation from the crippling disease.
The EDO advised parents to come forward and play their role in ensuring vaccination of their children to eliminate the disease from the society.
Cutting fat may shorten life
A new study suggested that restricting fatty food may not lengthen the life span, as was widely believed, but may have a contrary effect, i.e. shortened life.
Researchers at the UT Health Science Center San Antonio's Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies, with colleagues at the University of Colorado, studied the effect of food restriction on fat and weight loss in 41 genetically different strains of mice.
The scientists then correlated the amount of fat reduction to life span.
The result showed that mice that maintained their fat actually lived longer. Those that lost fat died earlier.
"Indeed, the greater the fat loss, the greater the likelihood the mice would have a negative response to dietary restriction, i.e., shortened life," said James Nelson, professor of physiology at the Barshop Institute.
"This is contrary to the widely held view that loss of fat is important for the life-extending effect of dietary restriction. It turns the tables a bit," he said.
The researchers, however, cautioned that the new findings could not be directly applied to people until similar studies are done in humans.
People are best advised to adopt a moderate approach, not losing all fat but definitely not keeping unhealthy amounts of fat, either.