Over 0.4m children still unvaccinated

Third-party evaluation finds progress in Pindi; No more paid leaves for polio officials

RAWALPINDI: The recent nation-wide vaccination drive against polio has made some strides but around 400,000 children still remain out of the reach of vaccinators with government officials noting that the job is still, “not yet done”.

However, third-party evaluation of the recent anti-polio campaign met with unusual success in Rawalpindi.

The figures were revised during a meeting to review the nationwide polio vaccination campaign which took place in December. The meeting was chaired by Federal Health Minister Aamer Mehmood Kiani.

During the meeting, National Emergency Operations Centre Coordinator Dr Rana Muhammad Safdar said that around 260,000 polio workers worked over the course of a week to vaccinate some 37.73 million children who are under five-years-of-age in December.

The campaign covered almost 90 per cent of the targeted children. Of those missed by the main campaign, a catch-up campaign was launched which has so far vaccinated 92 per cent of the missed children.

However, there are still around 400,000 children who remain unvaccinated.

Dr Safdar added that they were conducting an extended catch-up campaign in the current week to vaccinate these children as well.

“Despite significant case decline, the presence of the virus in sewerage of urban areas indicates that our job is not yet done,” Dr Safdar noted, adding, “We are working hard to fully plug the immunity gaps by addressing the remaining challenges in core reservoirs.”

The national coordinator detailed the strategies to convince those who had refused to vaccinate their children to help stop the spread of the virus, particularly in Peshawar and Gadap Town of Karachi.

“Over 95 per cent of parents remain supportive, however, full community ownership will determine our success over the next few months,” he said, adding that they were undertaking intense efforts to correct ill-founded perceptions held by those resisting vaccinators about vaccination through focused community-engagement at the street level.

The federal health minister reiterated the government’s commitment to halting the transmission of the virus.

“Guided by our National Task Force — with the national and provincial leadership on board, we are striving not only to sustain the gains but to accelerate the progress by focusing on reaching the repeatedly missed children during this winter,” he added.

He earlier stated that annual polio case counts have fallen from 20,000 to only eight this year, which indicates remarkable progress in protecting children from the vaccine-preventable disease.

“With the virus confined to small pockets of persistent transmission within core reservoirs, the country has a historic opportunity in hand to ensure a polio free future for generations,” Kiani said.

Pindi progress

Meanwhile, third-party evaluation of the anti-polio vaccination drive for the Rawalpindi district has shown that it achieved a 107 per cent result.



A lot quality assessment survey showed that the recent drive reached those areas where parents were previously reluctant to have the vaccine administered to their children.

This helped lower the refusal number to just 261 in the city. This is down from the 2,800 refusals during the September drive and 1,800 during the November vaccination drive.

Rawalpindi District Health Authority (RDHA) Chief Executive Dr Khalid Mehmood said that the recent anti-polio drive met with unusual success.

He explained the success the result of some extraordinary cooperation from the political and civil society circles which played a key role in the role drive.

Moreover, he said that they had greater support from social mobilisers in areas where they have frequently encountered problems and met with resistance.

No paid leaves for polio officials

Prime Minister’s Focal Person on Polio Babar Atta on Monday said that from now on, no polio official will be allowed to avail leave with pay during a polio campaign. This includes the catch-up campaign period as well.

He added that while officials can decide to be truant or take leave during a campaign, but they will have to forego their pay for such days.

Atta added that the decision had been taken following advice from various deputy commissioners. 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 25^th, 2018.