Hundreds of doctors, nurses and workers of the health, education, social welfare and civil defence departments who will implement the campaign attended an orientation and commencement ceremony at the Alhamra Cultural Complex on Tuesday.
“We are at a crossroads. Polio has been eradicated in all but a few countries in the world and Pakistan is one of them,” EDO (Health) Umar Farooq Baloch told the workers. “If we don’t eradicate this menace it may be detrimental to the country.”
Baloch said there would be no volunteers in the programme because they could not be held accountable while the workers could. He said that the entire provincial and city government machinery had been dedicated to the drive.
Baloch told The Express Tribune that a three-day training programme for the workers would begin on Thursday. He said that some 2,000 health workers and 3,500 workers from other departments would form around 2,500 teams that would go around the city administering polio drops to children.
He said that the government had decided that it would fire workers who failed to report for duty and had other options for disciplinary measures to ensure a high level of performance.
DDO (Health) Haq Nawaz Bharwana said fighting polio was a major challenge for all Pakistanis.
Some countries had threatened sanctions and travel restrictions on Pakistanis for being unable to eradicate the disease. He said that this was their chance to show the world that they could finish polio in Pakistan and handle such major health campaigns. He said eradicating polio would be a major milestone in Pakistan’s history.
Lead vaccinator Fazal Abbas said that the campaign would be conducted on several fronts.
The workers would not just go door-to-door but also set up vaccination camps at public points such as bus stops, airports, hospitals and clinics.
According to Health Department instructions, each field team will be made up of a female and a male worker.
Muhammed Arshad Butt, who is in charge of the campaign in Wagha Town, said that this was because some women would feel uncomfortable interacting with all-male teams.
DO (Public Health) Dr Tariq Ramazan said there were more men than women workers so not all the teams would be mixed.
WHO collaboration
Dr Deborah Bettels, the director of the WHO programme in Pakistan, told The Express Tribune that there had been a drop in the number of new polio cases in Lahore in recent years, from 31 in 2008, to 17 in 2009 and 7 in 2010. Children most at risk of the disease live in FATA, she said. Most of the cases in Lahore came from people who came to the city from elsewhere.
WHO official Khaled Abdul Aziz said that the Punjab government had shown a very high commitment to the campaign.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 2nd, 2011.
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