LAHORE, May 13: Measles claimed lives of three children while 82 more cases were reported in the provincial capital on Monday.

Eight-month-old Talha, six-year-old Naeema and four-year-old Saif died at Children’s Hospital, a source said.

Two victims belonged to Chungi Amar Sidhu and the third one to a nearby Kot Lakhpat locality.

Earlier, the measles-related deaths of three babies and dozens of cases were also reported in same areas which indicate that the disease has mostly hit there.

QUETTA, May 13: The death toll from the suicide bomb blast in Quetta on Sunday climbed to eight after one of over 90 injured died on Monday.

Banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi militant group claimed responsibility for the attack on the residence of the IGP Balochistan.

The dead included two activists of the Balochistan National Party-Mengal, who were passing through the area at the time of the attack.

“Our six activists were injured in the blast and firing” that erupted after the bombing, a senior leader of the BNP-M said.

From the Newspaper | Asif Choudary

LAHORE, April 23: The health department has formed ‘Measles Experts Advisory Group’ comprising leading pediatricians of the province to fight the epidemic that has claimed lives of more than 80 children since January.

Initiative is inspired by Dengue Experts Advisory Group (DEAG) which was constituted by former chief minister Shahbaz Sharif in the wake of disease’s worst-ever outbreak in Punjab.

LAHORE, April 18: International health partners will meet here on Friday (today) to help the Punjab government, which is in dire need of an estimated Rs3 billion to launch an anti-measles campaign, reach 30.3 million target children.

The proposed campaign would be launched before monsoon to protect children from the life-threatening infectious disease, a senior government official said.

He said the meeting was being described as a ‘critical one’ in the wake of the recent outbreak of the measles which has claimed lives of more than 50 children since January.

From the Newspaper | Mohammad Asghar |

RAWALPINDI: A three-member polio vaccination team was tortured by the occupants of a house in Mughalabad who refused to allow them to administer polio vaccine to their children, police said on Wednesday.

R.A Bazar police have arrested three members of the family.

Qamar Zaman, the incharge of polio vaccination team in his FIR said hardly had I asked the inmates of the house to get their children vaccinated, three young men attacked the team. “They punched and dragged us in the street,” Qamar Zaman said in his complaint.

MIRAMSHAH: Irritated by blockade of main artery of Miramshah in North Waziristan, the local Taliban Shura issued a ‘decree’ on Monday barring boys and girls from going to schools near the Cantonment area until security forces removed the barricades.

The Hafiz Gul Bahadur-led Shura warned parents not to send their children to five education institutions near the Cantonment area in Miramshah.

KARACHI: A man and his young son were shot dead in a ‘sectarian attack’ at a shop in an apartment building in Gulshan-i-Iqbal on Saturday, police said.

They added that four gunmen riding two motorcycles arrived at a mobile phone shop in the Gulshan View Apartment building on Abul Hasan Ispahani Road and shot at Kalbe Abbas, 52, and his 26-year-old son, Musarrat Abbas, before fleeing.

“Kalbe Abbas was hit by four bullets in the chest and the head while his son sustained two gunshot wounds in the head,” said ASI Mohammad Ashraf of the Mobina Town police station.

LAHORE, April 13: Punjab Minister for Health Salima Hashmi has said negligence in routine immunisation coverage is the major cause of measles spread.

Talking to the media after inaugurating the computerised token system for the convenience of patients at the Government Shahdara Hospital on Saturday, she said strict measures were being taken to remove loopholes in the immunisation coverage.

Health Secretary Arif Nadeem, Medical Superintendent Dr Abid Kareem, Project Director Dr Ijaz Ahmed Sheikh and other senior doctors were also present.

PESHAWAR: The World Health Organisation has declared Peshawar a major hurdle to the country’s polio eradication programme and called for effective vaccination campaigns to reach targeted children.

Dr Elias Durry, head of WHO in Pakistan, told Dawn on Tuesday that Peshawar, where P1 virus was consistently in circulation, had been declared ‘red high-risk’ district for polio as 70,000 children remained unimmunised in the first quarter of the current year.