Security remains an issue; campaigns missed over one million children in the last year. PHOTO: FILE
ISLAMABAD:
A three-day national polio immunisation campaign will kick-off from April 15 with the goal of immunising 33.5 million children under five from across the country.
Around 77,735 mobile teams will go house-to-house in 163 districts, towns and agencies to deliver 38 million doses of the vaccine. In addition, 9,756 fixed centres and 5,642 transit points will be operating.
However, after the killing of at least 21 polio workers in a spate of attacks over the last year, it has become a challenge for the Pakistani government to ensure a secure environment for polio workers.
Talking to The Express Tribune, Dr Altaf Bosan , national coordinator at the Prime Minister’s (PM) Polio Eradication Cell said the cell has written to the health secretaries in all four provinces, AJK, Gilgit-Baltistan and the health services director in Islamabad requesting liaison with the Provincial Security Coordination Committee to ensure that necessary security arrangements are in place.
Mazhar Nisar, spokesperson for the PM’s polio coordination cell, said the recent announcement by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — “If they can convince us that these polio drops are Islamic and the spy agencies are not using it to kill our fighters, we would have no opposition to any vaccination drive in the public interest” — reflects that there could be a platform to negotiate on the issue, which is currently one of the biggest hurdles in vaccinating over 300,000 children in the tribal areas.
The last national anti-polio campaign was held in October 2012. It missed around one million children, while there were 45,000 refusals. Later in March, during a sub-national immunisation drive, around 500,000 children were missed.
On this Nisar said there remained a few issues during the anti-polio drives such as accessibility for polio workers and refusals by the families.
Meanwhile, polio vaccinators from Rawalpindi district said, “To us, going out to vaccinate children seems like going to a battlefront.”
The vaccinators said that before every campaign, they are told that each polio team will get one police constable as an escort, yet at the end of the day, 75 teams in the region only got 30-40 constables.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 14th, 2013.
COMMENTS (2)
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People of Pakistan are lucky that Health Department search for you and your kids for FREE immunization, in other world it is sole responsibility of the parents. Being in GCC, I keep constant check on the immunization of our kids even when it cost thousands of Rupees.
No School in the world will admit your kid to school without immunization records......some institutions at University Level also demand immunization records.
one need to tell the people of Pakistan that, proper Immunization and good Education are two best gift that parents can give to their children.