Boosting immunization coverage: Govt to pilot vaccination incentive programme in G-B

BISP and EPI sign agreement to offer a cash incentive to social security net beneficiaries

ISLAMABAD: In a bid to encourage parents to immunise their children, the government has decided to provide a financial incentive to poor parents to vaccinate their children against various diseases.

The programme will be initially piloted in four districts of the remote Gilgit-Baltistan region to increase vaccination coverage in
the country, which remains stagnant at around 54 per cent.

On Wednesday Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) and the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) signed an agreement which would see children of BISP beneficiaries in Gilgit-Baltistan get vaccinated.

The partnership is expected to directly benefit some 5,000 BISP beneficiaries and 9,000 children in the four districts of G-B.



The beneficiaries will be immunised and incentivised for their participation under a new grant from the World Bank, worth $3.5 million.

Health Minister Saira Afzal Tarar said that the EPI programme has achieved several milestones, especially on the supply side with regard to the provision of immunisation services but the demand still requires more miles to go for enhancing the routine immunization coverage.

In this context, she said that “interventions such as the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) would help to increase the demand of routine immunisation amongst the people, particularly the poor segment of the population in Pakistan.”

Explaining why G-B was selected for piloting the programme, she pointed to the polio case reported from Diamir last year. Based on site readiness assessment and analyses of immunization data, she said they had picked the region for the CCT initiative.

“This is the second conditional cash transfer programme being launched by BISP,” disclosed BISP Chairperson Marvi Memon.

She added that the first conditional cash programme was the Waseela-e-Taleem initiative, which was first launched in five districts to pilot it. It has since been expanded to 50 districts across the country.

She hoped that this programme would soon be able to extend to other regions.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 22^nd, 2018.