Immunisation campaigns: Govt to allocate Rs500m in 2017-18

Cost to be shifted from development to recurring in budget

ISLAMABAD: In order to make routine immunisation sustainable, the government has decided to commit Rs500 million for the national immunisation programme in the upcoming budget.

Moreover, it has been decided to shift its budget from the development sector to recurrent side.

Further, the government will allocate the operational costs for the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) in the upcoming 2017-18, while funding for vaccines would be shifted from development to the recurring budget after 2020.

These details were shared by health officials with two high-level missions of GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance and World Bank during the National Inter-Agency Coordination Committee meeting.

GAVI representatives visit Pakistan biannually to oversee the progress of the vaccine programme.

Health Ministry Secretary Mohammad Ayub briefed the mission about the programme’s achievements last year. He noted that allocation of funds in a recurring budget was a critical step in ensuring availability of and release of funds, well in time, for both the federal and provincial government.

Payments released through development project proposals used to cause delays in funding immunisation programme.

Officials said that last year when the mission had visited the country, it had recommended 69 initiatives. Most of these had been implemented, the official said.

This time, Ayub said, GAVI had put forward only five main recommendations including a sustainable and continued flow of budget for the programme.

Further, on the recommendation of the missions, it was decided to hold a nationwide campaign for measles in 2018 owing to reports of the disease in Sindh and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

The last nationwide campaign for measles was held in 2014.

GAVI financially supports 98 per cent of five vaccines. One is totally free of charge while four vaccines are purchased by EPI including, BCG, polio, measles and tetanus.

However, for the nationwide campaign, GAVI would finance 98 per cent of the campaign.

The State Minister for Health Saira Afzal Tarar said Pakistan’s EPI has been moving towards integrating technology for its functional use in immunisation, service delivery and data management.

Tarrar said that it was encouraging to share that in recent past Pakistan had three back to back successful grant applications for the health system strengthening and Rota virus introduction. Most recently, Pakistan had also received approval of its cold chain equipment-optimization platform application.

Rota virus vaccine has been introduced in six districts in Punjab and soon would be introduced countrywide, she said.

The cold chain capacity was also among the critical challenges for the country and a nationwide cold chain inventory assessment. Under the national immunisation support programme funding and Gavi support, the cold chain would be upgraded.

“Ensuring that all children are vaccinated and protected from life-threatening diseases is a top priority of the Pakistan government,” she said.

Hind Khatib-Othman, who led the GAVI delegation, noted the collaboration and cross-learning across the provinces on the use of innovative technology to track performance of vaccinators and working closely with the polio program to identify missed children.

Othman said that Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa also made significant progress, doubling the strength of EPI staff and services, including lady health workers.

5-day campaign

The five-day anti-polio campaign, which began in all tehsils and towns of the twin cities, entered into its second day on Thursday.

District Health Authority Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr Fayyaz Butt said that they had administered polio vaccines to 540,000 children so far.

Dr Butt said that they had set-up 139 mobile health teams, with 448 area in-charges, 209 medical officers in Rawalpindi.

He said the polio drops were also being administered at allied hospitals and Tehsil Headquarter hospitals in order to ensure that all children should be immunised.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 10^th, 2017.