Immunisation drives: Swat to initiate SMS service for health awareness

Participants at one-day workshop discuss plans to increase immunisation rates.

MINGORA:

Swat may introduce a mobile texting system to increase public awareness of widespread diseases, District Commissioner (DC) Farukh Ateeq said at a workshop on Wednesday.

Other measures for disease prevention and improving immunisation rates were discussed in the meeting. The event was organised by Sarhad Rural Support Programme (SRSP) with the support of UNICEF.

Health experts said immunisation rates are directly related to awareness levels of parents. Lack of understanding along with misunderstood religious beliefs in certain areas was discussed to be the main cause of refusal cases.

Immunisation for polio, tetanus, measles, tuberculosis, diphtheria, pertussis, hepatitis, meningitis and pneumonia are administered to children up to the age of five under the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) in the country.



“We have to let go of traditional approaches and focus on new and scientific ways for more effective results,” the commissioner said. “We are working on a system to inform people about various diseases through SMS. We are in the initial stage of collecting all mobile numbers,” he added.

“Lack of awareness, religious constraints, limited accessibility, lack of vaccines and staff lead to various fatal diseases,” said Sajjad Ahmad, an official in the health project.

The participants shared the pre and post militancy record of diseases amongst children in Swat. “There were more than 70,000 cases of polio and other vaccination refusal in the district during the insurgency,” said Dr Rehmat Elahi, the EPI coordinator in Swat. “However, due to continuous efforts of the EPI teams and health departments we had only 63 refusal cases in the beginning of this year, which we also successfully turned around.”

He said there are 73 facilities available in the entire district where vaccines for nine diseases are administered free of cost.

Ijaz Ali, a representative of SRSP, said more than 12,000 community organisations are being formed that will engage 20,000 of the youth as well. “The community organisations and youth will be used to plan awareness sessions regarding immunisation to help the government tackle the issue,” he said.



According to the EPI staff, the campaign in Swat district is being conducted regularly in which lady health workers (LHW) play an important role. “They take an active part to administer vaccines in distant areas even if they have to pay from their own pocket. We fully support the district administration and will continue to help them in the future,” Nasreen Saba, Assistant Coordinator of LHWs said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 26^th, 2013.