PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Secretary Kazim Niaz said Friday the government’s goal was complete eradication of the poliovirus, media sources reported.

The chief secretary made those remarks at the Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) while inaugurating a five-day anti-polio campaign.

The five-day anti-polio campaign will officially launch on February 17 and aims to protect more than 6.7 million children under the age of five from poliovirus.

Read More: Two polio cases surface in Lakki Marwat

It was announced in January that the total number of reported cases of polio across the country reached 134 in 2019, including 91 cases in KP, 24 cases in Sindh, 8 in Punjab and 11 in Balochistan.

The head secretary named polio eradication as a ‘national cause’ and a ‘collective responsibility’ and encouraged all aspects of society, donor agencies and government institutions to make cooperative efforts to save generations in the future from disease.

There were as many as 28,049 teams of qualified lady health workers in charge of the program, which includes 24,900 mobile, 1,849 fixed and 1,300 transit employees to ensure that every child in the age group is vaccinated.