Brainstorming session: Health officials push for ‘quality’ anti-polio drives

Federal and provincial officials meet to devise strategy for 2015.

ISLAMABAD: Federal and provincial health representatives have urged improving the quality rather than the number of anti-polio campaigns, as they began mapping out strategies to keep polio at bay in 2015.

In an attempt to avert the 2014 crisis, the country’s health officials have started brainstorming to prepare a National Emergency Action Plan (NEAP) for Polio Eradication for the year 2015-16. To help achieve the target, a consultation meeting was held on Thursday at the National Emergency Operations Centre.



Representatives from the provinces shared new strategies for NEAP while recalling and keeping in mind the lessons learnt in the previous year which took the national polio count to 300-plus.

While expressing grave concern over the repeated anti-polio drives last year, they suggested that for 2015, the emphasis should be on improving the quality of anti-polio campaigns.

According to documents available with The Express Tribune, in 2014 the quality of the campaign was lower than desired for effective eradication. In addition, supportive supervision and effective monitoring before, during and after campaigns was weak. A systemic collection, analysis and interpretation of data and dissemination of information was also sub-optimal.

Khawaja Salman Rafiq, adviser to the Punjab chief minister on health, proposed revising the priority list of high-risk districts by including Rahim Yar Khan, DG Khan and Rajanpur, due to ongoing circulation of poliovirus in north Sindh and Balochistan province.

Dr Mazhar Khamisani, project director for EPI in Sindh, highlighted that Sindh Polio Programme has requested for 700 security personnel to conduct synchronised polio campaigns in Karachi’s high-risk union councils (UCs) but despite several commitments, security personnel were still not deputed for polio team escorts.

Dr Sahibzada Khalid, deputy director EPI–Fata (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) said the region is facing security issues which is currently a big challenge. Repatriation of TDPs to North and South Waziristan is also a task that is under way.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 27^th, 2015.