{"id":139590,"date":"2025-11-17T14:28:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T14:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/139590\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T14:28:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T14:28:07","slug":"pakistan-launches-drive-to-vaccinate-57m-children-against-measles-rubella-and-polio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/139590\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan launches drive to vaccinate 57M children against measles, rubella and polio"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">ISLAMABAD &#8212; Pakistan on Monday began a two-week nationwide vaccination campaign targeting more than 57 million children, aiming to curb <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/pakistan-new-polio-cases-eradication-disease-69c59f921419f330190ebdd63293c079\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">rising cases of measles, rubella and polio<\/a>, the country\u2019s National Emergency Operations Center said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The drive, running through Nov. 29, will provide measles and rubella shots to 34.5 million children and administer polio drops to 23.3 million, it said in a statement. The campaign follows training by the World Health Organization of more than 140,000 health workers to support vaccination teams.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Measles typically begins with a high fever and a rash that spreads from the face to the neck. While most children recover, the disease remains a leading cause of death among young children, according to WHO.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Over the past three years, Pakistan has reported more than 131,000 measles cases, highlighting the urgency of the effort.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \"><a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/pakistan-launched-polio-vaccination-campaign-96bb8b0644a6e4951d48a1a55bafce32\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Though drives against polio are frequently launched<\/a> in Pakistan, despite militant attacks on vaccination teams and the police officers who escort them, campaigns against measles and rubella drives are usually launched every two to three years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">According to the World Health Organization, Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan remain the only two countries where polio, a potentially fatal, paralyzing virus, hasn\u2019t been stopped, according to WHO.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Since January, Pakistan has recorded 30 new polio cases, a setback in the fight to eradicate the crippling disease among children. Militants in Pakistan falsely claim that vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">Since the 1990s, more than 200 polio workers and police officers assigned to protect them have been killed in attacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ISLAMABAD &#8212; Pakistan on Monday began a two-week nationwide vaccination campaign targeting more than 57 million children, aiming&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[94937,1763,1061,3717,134,20311,111,139,69,94936,87507,255],"class_list":{"0":"post-139590","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-94937","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-children","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-measles","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-polio-and-post-polio-syndrome","18":"tag-rubella","19":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}