KHYBER AGENCY - The Khasadar Force personnel will administer anti-polio vaccine to children below the age of five years in door-to-door campaign scheduled in the first week of 2014, official sources informed on Friday.
Assistant Political Agent (APA) Jamrud Jahangir Azam Wazir confirmed it and said that after withdrawing volunteers’ support in Jamrud, the political administration decided to train the Khasadar force to carry out the polio drive in the area. For this purpose, sixty Khasadar from Jamrud and Landi kotal were taught how to administer polio drops to children in a training session conducted by the health officials in Jamrud tehsil last day. The situation became worst when in twelve days two polio workers were shot dead by unknown militants in Jamrud and four hundred volunteers and eight Expanded Programme of Immunisation (EPI) decided to quit the polio campaign due to security problems. According to health department, 1,28,000 children in Khyber Agency, including 55,000 in Jamrud will be vaccinated during the drive to be planned on January 02, 2014. It is important to state that 19 polio positive cases have been been detected in Khyber in 2013.