QUETTA, JAN 03, (DNA) – Pakistan began a special five-day polio immunisation campaign in the south-western city of Quetta on Monday for children under five after a rare strain of the virus was found in sewage samples, officials said.

Local officials said they had recruited Muslim clerics to promote the immunisations for 400,000 children after past programmes were met with resistance and even violence by extremists.

“The religious leaders were…asking the people to give their children anti-polio drops in their sermons in the mosques in rural areas of Baluchistan,” said Syed Faisal Ahmed, coordinator of the local Emergency Operation Centre.

Pakistan is one of just three countries in the world, along with Afghanistan and Nigeria that have endemic polio, a once-common childhood virus that can cause paralysis or death.=DNA

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