Polio-free Pakistan: Vaccination campaign from July 25

Focus on children missed in previous inoculation drives

BAHAWALPUR: A polio immunisation campaign will kick off in Rahim Yar Khan district on July 25. It will continue till July 27. The campaign has been announced to ensure vaccination coverage of children who had been left out previously.

Additional District Collector Jameel Ahmad supervised a meeting in this regard on Thursday. The participants discussed various   ways to make the vaccination campaign more effective and to remove obstacles in the way of the campaign.

They focused on how to reach children who were missed in earlier polio vaccination campaigns.  Ahmad said it was crucial to make the inoculation drive a success. “This requires a spirit of patriotism, integrity and empathy with children…their future is at stake here.”

He said the district administration was working hard to completely eliminate poliomyelitis. “I hope that our efforts will soon bear fruit and Pakistan would become polio free.”

He said Health Department’s teams could ask for assistance from their respective tehsils assistant commissioners to reach children missed in the campaign or whose parents refused to get their children vaccinated. He said the government had issued directions in this regard. He issued directions with regard to monitoring the control room’s performance to make the efforts more effective, Health EDO Makhdoom Basharat Hussain Hashmi said the polio campaign will start on July 25 and will conclude on July 27. “Training workshops for the staff have begun.”

He said the teams would aim to vaccinate 839,189 children under the age of five years throughout the district. As many as 1,743 mobile, 223 fixed teams will inoculate the children. As many as 146 teams will be stationed at transit points.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 15^th, 2016.