Rumours undo years of efforts, health officials say

EPI reschedules extensive outreach immunisation campaign in merged districts

The recent rumours against the polio vaccine have undone years of efforts of the Health Department to convince parents to get their children vaccinated against the crippling disease.

The viral disease remains a threat to other people making Pakistan vulnerable to travel sanctions. Poliovirus is found only in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Although the recent rumours caused a scare among people against the oral polio vaccine, refusal cases have been on the rise over the past years.

According to health department officials, there were 35,856 refusal cases across the province in September 2017, which increased to 57,711 in December 2018 and 60,959 parents refused to get their children inoculated against polio in January 2019.

In Peshawar, officials said, 17,438 polio vaccine refusal cases were recorded in September 2017, which increased to 34,557 in December 2018 and in January 2019 refusal cases dropped to 33,701.

Separately, the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) Cell has rescheduled the first phase of extensive outreach vaccinations drive due to recent baseless propaganda that has damaged the on-going polio campaign in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and merged districts.

The decision to reschedule the extensive outreach vaccination programme in merged districts was decided in a meeting held here with Programme Manager Dr Sahibzada M Khalid and humanitarian partners were presented.

The decision was taken due to fear that the prevailing public sentiments against vaccinations drives may jeopardise the first phase of the programme that was previously scheduled to start on April 26.

The programme will now kick off on Monday next week, April 29, for which all arrangements have already been finalised.

It was decided that apart from areas with EPI centres, the hard-to -access far-flung areas with no EPI centres would be accessed during the programme.

The 12-day extensive outreach vaccination programme shall be conducted in the catchment areas of EPI centres and far-flung areas will be covered thereafter for five (05) days (dates for the areas of no EPI centres will be communicated later).

It was also decided that stock of all vaccines will be evaluated/calculated and in case of any shortage, the vaccines could be collected from stores of merged areas directorate. The store will also be opened on Saturday for collection of vaccines.

Meanwhile, the report of the inquiry ordered by the Chief Minister Mahmood Khan into the April 22 panic has put the responsibility on the principal of a private school in the area, elected representatives of the local bodies, community and religious scholars of the area.

A 10-member committee headed by additional deputy commissioner Peshawar filed a report on the polio vaccine scare incident. It said that at least 40,000 children were brought to various hospitals in the provincial capital, while over 18,000 were brought to Lady Reading Hospital’s emergency.

“None of the children were affected by polio drops. The panicked parents had brought the kids out of fear of a reaction that could happen. Children examined by the doctors were totally fit and  no side effect were found in the incident,” the report stated.

The report stated that teachers, religious scholars, local bodies’ representative were behind the incident. It lauded the role of mainstream media for disseminating