300 families turned away vaccinators in Pindi

Govt to launch another five-day drive in garrison city next week

RAWALPINDI: As plans for launching a fresh five-day vaccination drive in Rawalpindi are under way, it has emerged that the last immunisation drive saw around 300 families turn away vaccinators.

The drive, which ended a few days ago as part of World Immunisation Week, was reviewed by a polio district committee.

During the meeting, it emerged that 299 families had refused to administer the drops to their children. Moreover, the committee expressed its dissatisfaction over the performance of health workers in five councils (UCs) of Rawal town including UC 28, 37, 11, 13 and 26.

Moreover, there were 15 children who were missed in the last vaccination drive. The meeting also discussed the upcoming vaccination drive, which will start on May 7 and conclude on May 11.

District Health Authority Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr Sohail Chaudhry said that the drive will aim to vaccinate around 840,000 children in the district who are below five-years-of-age. For this purpose, they have established 2,333 mobile teams, 287 fixed points and 119 transit points. He added that covering refusal cases from the previous campaign is a priority for the upcoming drive.

To improve the performance of vaccinators, he said that special teams have been designated which will be monitoring the campaign's progress. Security has also been arranged for health workers.

Meanwhile, health department officials said that a warning had been issued to those vaccinators who had performed poorly in the last vaccination drive. For this purpose, they said that medical officers will be taken on board.

The district health authority was also tasked with convincing heads of families, who had turned away vaccinators, to allow vaccination. Should the family still turn away vaccinators, the health officials were told to lodge cases against such parents.

Moreover, the government has decided to split vaccination work in the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi based on the jurisdictional boundaries of police stations in either city.

Addressing the meeting, Rawalpindi Deputy Commissioner Talat Mehmood  Gondal recommended that apart from completing the polio plan by covering every possible angle, complete information of the ‘zero-dosed’ children shall also be obtained.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 30^th, 2018.