Polio campaign to resume from July 20 in Karachi

The Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for Polio in Sindh would conduct a small-scale polio campaign in Karachi from July 20, according to the organisation’s press release issued on Tuesday.

Baldia, Orangi, North Nazimabad, Liaqatabad and SITE are among the locations where the campaign would be held in which approximately 260,000 children, under the age of five, would be administered oral polio vaccine.

This is the first polio-campaign since the breakout of Covid-19 pandemic in Pakistan. Following this small-scale campaign, wider scope campaigns will be conducted on a monthly basis in Sindh until the end of the year.

EOC spokesperson said that “these campaigns are of utmost importance as we must give children oral polio vaccine to save them from polio and to ensure a healthy future for them, Pakistan is one of the two polio-endemic countries in the world along with Afghanistan and has so far reported a total of 58 polio cases out of which 20 cases are from Sindh.”

EOC faced a setback due to the pandemic when global polio campaigns were halted in March and it is absolutely necessary now that these vaccines are provided to fill the immunity gap in children, the spokesperson added.

Talking about the safety measures during the campaign he said that “We are taking all WHO recommended precautionary measures for the upcoming campaigns, parents have nothing to fear.”

“Our workers have been provided sanitisers, masks, gloves and will not directly handle any child, not knock on doors and not interact closely with parents, spending minimum time at the doorsteps,” spokesperson assured.

In order to make up for the gap in campaigns, EOC Sindh has requested all parents to cooperate with polio teams and give their children, who are under the age of five, two drops of the polio vaccine every time they are offered.

The EOC spokesperson further added that the benefits of vaccination far outweigh the risk of transmission after Covid-19 and the Sindh government is committed to providing these lifesaving vaccines to the children of the province so that the immunity gap can be decreased.

The door-to-door campaigns would also be utilised to raise awareness on coronavirus prevention as well as for referring mothers and children for other essential vaccinations and antenatal care services.

“Sindh had back-to-back successful campaigns from December 2019 to March 2020 which had gone a long way to put the polio programme on track,” the EOC spokesperson said. “However, since the outbreak of Covid-19, no campaigns could be conducted while routine immunisation was also severely affected, leaving an immunity gap which must immediately be addressed as children are more susceptible to the virus than before.”

“While we deal with the pandemic, we must also deal with childhood immunisation to prevent childhood diseases. Children can be saved from childhood diseases like polio through vaccination and we seek the media's help to raise awareness regarding this,” the spokesperson said.

The Pakistan Pediatrics Association, medical experts across the world, major religious scholars across Pakistan endorse the oral polio vaccine which is safest and most effective for not only preventing polio but also eradicating it from the environment.

10 billion doses of this vaccine have been given to three billion children across the world in the last decade as a result of which 10 million polio cases have been avoided.