PHOTO: AFP
ISLAMABAD: Senator Ayesha Raza Farooq, the prime minister’s focal person on polio, identified on Saturday three “polio virus nurseries” from where the crippling disease continues to re-emerge and spread across the country.
These nurseries are located in the Khyber-Peshawar conveyer belt, Quetta block and Karachi, according to Senator Ayesha Raza. These places “continue re-seeding the polio virus infection across the country and have become major problematic areas for Pakistan’s Polio Eradication Programme, hampering its effort to root out the crippling disease from the country, he said.
The senator was briefing members of the newly constituted prime minister’s focus group for polio eradication during its first meeting at the PM Office.
“Independent monitoring clearly indicates significant quality improvements, however, we are yet to achieve the eradication level performance in problematic pockets of Khyber-Peshawar and Karachi from where the virus has been consistently challenging us,” she said.
Talking to The Express Tribune, Senator Ayesha Raza said that security issues were a leading factor behind low impact anti-polio campaigns in these areas which ultimately resulted in a fresh emergence of polio cases.
“This year six polio cases have been reported from Karachi which is “worrisome” and have raised a ‘red flag’,” she said.
Farooq said that in the focus group meeting the Sindh chief secretary informed the participants about recently constituted Karachi task force under the commissioner and also updated participants on additional security measures taken by the Sindh government and assured that it would not be allowed to hamper campaign quality in future activities.
Talking about Quetta, she said besides security issues, lack of local female polio workers/volunteers in polio teams had affected the quality and efficacy of the anti-polio drives.
“In the meeting we were informed by the officials concerned in Quetta that they have hired female polio workers/volunteers to address the issue and improve the quality of the campaigns,” said Farooq.
Last nationwide anti-polio drive of the current year
The PM’s focal person on polio eradication said that the last nationwide anti-polio drive for the year 2015 will get under way across the country from December 14. The campaign has already been launched in Karachi.
Remarkable improvement
Farooq further said that currently Pakistan is on track to wipe out polio from the country which is clearly reflected through the 85 per cent decline in the number of cases reported this year as compared to last year.
“Last year, till this time there were 296 cases were reported from across the country however this year till this time 49 cases have been reported which itself reflects remarkable improvement made by polio eradication programme and has received appreciation from international community,” she said.
Six high quality campaigns between now and May 2016 hold the key to wipe off the virus from the country said, Saira Afzal Tarar, the Minister of State for National Health Services while speaking to the participants of the meeting.
Stressing adequate security and accountability across the board, she emphasised the need to have focused and concerted efforts to quickly address the remaining challenges that were hampering the programme to reach and vaccinate each child during every campaign.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 13th, 2015.
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