TAG notes room for improvement

Technical Advisory Group says quality of drives in SWA, Tank should be brought on par with other areas

PESHAWAR: With Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and the tribal areas not reporting even a single case of polio in the past year, a UN health official has noted that campaigns in these regions still have areas where they can improve their efforts.

Jean-Marc Olive, chairman of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) on polio, visited both the emergency operation centers (EOC)  for K-P and federally administered tribal areas (Fata) on Thursday and met with officials from the Expanded Program on Immunisation and representatives of the donor agencies including Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation, World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations UNICEF and others.

During the visit, he appreciated the significant improvement made in eradicating polio from the province noting that not even a single case of polio had been reported across the region for over a year.

Olive stated that EOCs have played a key role in planning and implementing anti-polio policies by providing a common roof to all stakeholders. Congratulating officials over their remarkable success, he hoped that continued efforts will help K-P retain its polio-free status in the coming year.

The TAG chairman was briefed about the challenges faced by vaccination teams, measures taken by the government under the guidance of technical partners to fix gaps and the current status of polio in the province.

He was told that the poliovirus used to be transmitted through the frequent movement of people – especially those from settled areas to the tribal areas and even across the border and vice versa.

However, the government undertook efforts to ensure that this migratory population was vaccinated at transit points, read a statement issued by the K-P EOC.

It added that as part of measures to keep a close eye on the spread of polio, additional environmental samples were being taken while the latest monitoring and tracking systems were installed in the province.

K-P EOC coordinator Akbar Khan told the TAG chairman that apart from the few positive test for polio among children, environmental samples in Peshawar too were mostly testing negative for polio which suggested that their efforts were paying off.

Olive also visited the Fata EOC and appreciated officials involved in anti-polio drives.

A statement issued by Fata secretariat read that the TAG chairman suggested that the quality of the campaigns and their monitoring can be further improved in the small blind spots where external monitors could not conduct campaigns or monitor them.

Olive stressed that the performance of polio campaigns and surveillance, especially in South Waziristan Agency and the Frontier Regions of Tank can be improved to bring them at par with the remainder of the tribal areas.

He also emphasized on the engagement of women in the polio campaigns.

EOC Deputy Coordinator and Social Sectors Secretary Yousaf Rahim stated that Fata will continue to strive to improve the quality of campaigns and reach the goal of zero infections, the statement read.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 1^st, 2017.