Public health: Anti-polio drive kicks off in nine southern districts

7,910 mobile health teams will participate in the drive

LAHORE: The Health Department launched a polio immunisation drive in nine districts on Monday.

The districts covered in the drive are Dera Ghazi Khan, Muzaffargarh, Layyah, Rajanpur, Rahim Yar Khan, Bhakkar, Mianwali, Rawalpindi and Multan.

Health Department spokesman Akhlaq Ali Khan said that the administration was committed to neutralising the threat of polio disease in the province.

“The campaign has been initiated in 411 union councils in these districts. Teams have been given a target of immunising 3,049,713 children under the age of five,” he said.

Khan said around 7,910 mobile health teams would also participate in the drive. He said all necessary arrangements had been put in place to administer polio vaccines at hospitals and health centres. Services of health workers, teachers and officials from the Police and Civil Defence departments had been secured for the campaign, he said.

Khan said an environmental sample collected from Dera Ghazi Khan in February this year had been tested positive for polio virus.

He said no samples collected from any of the nine districts had been tested positive for the virus since February.

The department was testing samples collected from these areas once every month, he added.

Meanwhile, in a statement issued on Monday, Advisor to Chief Minister Khawaja Salman Rafique said the vaccination campaign was arranged in view of the positive environmental sample found in Dera Ghazi Khan and a recent polio case reported from Dera Ismail Khan district in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa.

He said the provincial EPI Programme team had been asked to develop close coordination with teams working in these districts to ensure timely planning, mapping of high risk mobile population and vaccine supply.

Secretary Primary and Secondary Healthcare Ali Jan Khan said the department was closely monitoring inter-provincial movement of population.

Health Services Director General Mukhtar Hussain Shah said that of the 54 cases reported in the country in 2015 only two were from the province.

EPI Director Munir Ahmed said that households with children aged five or less in districts covered in the three-day drive should contact officials concerned on the 0800 99000 helpline if no polio teams showed up in their areas.

In Dera Ghazi Khan, DCO Nadeemur Rehman inaugurated the campaign on Monday.

Speaking to the media, he said 1,451 teams had been formed to cover the district. Of these, 1,304 were mobile.

The DCO said teams had been asked to gather information about guests with children under the age of five years. He said foolproof security measured had been put in place for polio teams.

Pakistan is among the only three countries in the world where polio disease remains an endemic. Earlier in 2016, two polio virus cases had surfaced in the province, one in Chakwal and other in Rahim Yar Khan.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 26^th, 2016.