Round 9: Sehat ka Insaf teams vaccinate 0.7m children

Newly-appointed health minister expresses resolve to eradicate poliovirus.

PESHAWAR:

In the ninth phase of the Sehat ka Insaf immunisation campaign, nearly 4,190 teams vaccinated a total of 649, 887 children against nine diseases, including polio.

The campaign was conducted in 96 union councils (UC) of the district, however, UC Sheikhan was once again left un-vaccinated because of security concerns.

Recently-appointed Minister for Health Shahram Khan Tarakai inaugurated the campaign on Sunday morning at Sifwat Ghayyur Shaheed Memorial Children Hospital at Haji Camp and pledged to make all efforts possible to eradicate poliovirus from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P).



Addressing the media at the launch of the campaign, Tarakai said he was thankful to the provincial government for giving him the responsibility of senior minister for health and he would take the challenge head-on.

“Our priority is to strengthen district and tehsil headquarter hospitals across K-P, so that people can get affordable treatment close to their houses and the burden on tertiary healthcare centres is reduced,” said Tarakai.

The minister acknowledged that polio had become a major issue for the province and expressed resolve to eradicate it.

“The Sehat ka Insaf campaign in Peshawar will continue every week until the 12th phase, while from April 6, it will be extended to four other districts,” explained the health minister.

“In the ninth round, nearly 0.7 million children will be immunised and water purification tablets will be distributed in over 30,000 houses,” said Tarakai, flanked by former health minister Shaukat Yousafzai and Peshawar Deputy Commissioner Zaheerul Islam.

Yousafzai told journalists that Sehat ka Insaf has been highly appreciated by international humanitarian organisations and they had offered their cooperation for such initiatives in the future as well.

Security plan changes

As per a revised security plan for the polio campaign, the number of police volunteers has been increased. A police official told The Express Tribune that previously they provided security to each polio team individually but that failed to yield the desired results, and several polio workers and policemen were killed in attacks. This is why the police department has changed its strategy.

“Instead of providing security to every team we now focus on securing an entire locality so that attackers are not able to reach their target or escape in case they do succeed in an attack,” the official said.

“The number of police volunteers has also been increased in addition to the deployment of regular and reserve police,” he explained, adding mobiles and rider squads will assist where necessary.

Polio worker’s brother shot

Meanwhile, a man identified as Sajid Naseer was shot dead by unidentified people in Surizai late Saturday night. Badhaber police said Naseer was standing near his house when the assailants opened fire at him, killing him on the spot. According to a police official, the deceased was the brother of a supervisor of the police campaign and had been posted at the basic health unit in Surizai. An FIR has been registered. However, it is not clear yet if the attack was carried out because of his brother’s affiliation with the polio campaign.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 31^st, 2014.