Polio vaccination: Drive in Peshawar was not satisfactory

Tarar informed five UCs in Karachi had to cancel last polio campaign over security issues.

ISLAMABAD: The overall coverage of sub-immunisation drive against polio held in 72 districts across the country in December last year remained 90 per cent, which is being considered as satisfactory. However in Peshawar it was unsatisfactory.

This was discussed in a meeting held on Wednesday to review the last anti-polio campaign and preparation for the upcoming polio round this month.

Junior health minister Saira Afzal Tarar, who presided over the meeting, said that the criterion for quality campaign was a bare minimum of 90 per cent coverage.



“Any coverage less than this is not acceptable” she said adding that, immunisation campaigns carried out in some union councils (UCs) frequently were unable to reach the 90 per cent mark.

She said that there was a need to focus on quality of campaigns rather than frequency and concentrate our efforts on consistently non-performing UCs.

Tarar expressed concern over the cancellation of the polio campaign in parts of Karachi due to security situation.

The state minister was informed that five UCs in Karachi had to cancel the last polio campaign over security issues.

With regard to the Karachi situation it was agreed to discuss the proposal of holding special campaigns on a weekly basis with strict security cordon and concentration on both polio teams and security personnel.



The meeting asked National Health Services Secretary Muhammad Ayub Sheikh to hold urgent meeting with Karachi police chief to finalise security arrangements.

The meeting also decided to constitute a special committee for Karachi on polio eradication.

The meeting appreciated improvement in performance of IPV coverage in Qila Abdullah in Balochistan and Frontier Region of Bannu.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 15^th, 2015.