Polio vaccination: Advertising campaign on rickshaw launched ahead of drive

‘Logic squads’ to persuade hesitant parents to allow vaccination.

LAHORE:

The local government and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have hired advertising space on the backs of 5,000 rickshaws to raise awareness of an upcoming polio vaccination drive in the city.

The advertising campaign was launched by District Coordination Officer Noorul Amin Mengal in a ceremony at the Town Hall on Tuesday. The city government hired 2,000 rickshaws and Unicef 3,000 to display anti-polio messages on their backs.

“The rickshaws will roam the city and spread the message door to door to uproot the menace of polio,” a Health Department spokesman said.

The DCO, briefing reporters about the rickshaw adverts, said that the aim was to let people know about the upcoming vaccination campaign from July 16 to 18. “It is our objective to communicate the message in every street of the city,” he said. Mengal said that he was confident that they could make Lahore a polio-free city. Any staff that slacked off on the campaign would be fired, he said. He said after the three-day vaccination campaign, July 19 would be a “catch-up day” where officials try to target children who missed out on the vaccination.

The DCO said that the government would take religious scholars on board and ask them to urge people to get their children vaccinated via mosque loudspeakers. He said that an ‘Anti-Polio Refusal Squad’ would be set up in each of the nine towns of Lahore to change the minds of parents who had refused to allow their children to be given polio drops. He said that the teams would do this using logic and reasoning rather than force. Each squad will be made up of the town municipal officer, district officer (health) and other staff,

EDO (Health) Captain (retired) Inamul Haq said that the advertisement campaign would appeal not just to parents but children too.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 11^th, 2012.