Children to get oral, injectable vaccines in special drive

Campaign will be conducted under supervision of political agents, commissioners and security forces

PESHAWAR: To further strengthen the immunity of children under five-years-of-age against the crippling polio virus, a special, targeted vaccination campaign has been planned for different parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Balochistan in which over a million children will be administered both oral and injectable polio vaccine.

The five-day drive will be followed by two-days of catch up for missed children.

The campaign will be conducted under the supervision and security provided by political agents, commissioners and security forces.

Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) Health Services Director Dr Jawad Habib said that injectable polio vaccination (IPV) and oral polio vaccination (OPV) campaign is among the main factors which helped lower polio cases in the tribal areas to zero over the past 20 months.

“Since annual IPV campaigns started in 2015, they proved effective in lowering polio cases drastically,” he said, adding that they hope that this year phase-wise IPV-OPV campaigns will not only “secure children of Fata during the upcoming high transmission season but will also help Fata complete two years of maintaining zero polio status”.

The last polio case in Fata was reported on July 27, 2016, in the South Waziristan Agency. Not a single polio case was reported in 2017 and none have been reported in 2018 so far.

During the upcoming campaign, the government hopes to vaccinate a total of 119,248 children up to 23 months of age. Of these, 14,710 children are believed to be up to four months will only be vaccinated with OPV, while 104,538 children between four months and 23 months of age will receive both, OPV and IPV by a total of 451 teams; comprising 371 outreach, 78 fixed and two mobile teams.

“IPV administered in combination with OPV protects a child from poliovirus as well as increases the immunity level of the community for a prolonged period of time, therefore, aids in stopping the transmission of poliovirus,” Dr Habib said.

An IPV campaign will also be launched in Peshawar.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 23^rd, 2018.