ECNEC greenlights Rs26.9b for immunisation

ISLAMABAD: The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) has approved the much-delayed yet urgently needed, revised PC-1 for the Rs 26.9 billion federal Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) worth.

Some Rs1.9 billion will be used from this amount to procure vaccines to prevent nine childhood diseases.

This revised PC-1 will remain valid till June 30 this year, according to Sheikh Ayub, secretary at the ministry of national health services, regulation and coordination (NHSRC). “This [PC-1] was supposed to be formulated and approved last year but due to certain issues it was delayed which also caused a delay in procuring childhood vaccines,” Ayub said.

The amount released for this will be used to procure vaccines till December 2015 and to fulfill pending payments, he said.

Currently, the federal EPI is devising a five year EPI plan from 2015-2020 to ensure the continuous supply of vaccines used for routine immunisation across the country.

The revised PC-1 has been approved at a time when the federal EPI was creeping towards a worrisome situation where there was a possibility of vaccines running out of stock. It has given hope to the provincial EPI who feared facing a shortage of vaccine in near future.

Talking to The Express Tribune, a senior official at EPI Sindh who wished not to be named said, “Earlier, the EPI centres in various districts in the province were facing persistent shortage of BCG syringes over the last few months and now they have started running short of BCG, tetanus and oral polio vaccine used in routine immunisation as well.”

There are some 82,000 children in four districts of Sindh namely Tharparkar, Jacobabad, Kashmor and Thatta who are at risk of getting deprived of being vaccinated against BCG, OPV and tetanus as currently vaccines for preventing from these diseases are not available, said the official.

He said the situation in the Sindh province could become worrisome especially if the federal EPI do not provide the required amount of vaccines in the near future.

“For the last one to two months, most newborn babies are not being vaccinated against few childhood diseases,” said the official.

He said the heads of the EPI Sindh are continuously sending letters to the federal EPI to take notice of a shortage of vaccines and address the issue on a war footing. However, they have yet to receive a satisfactory response from them.

When contacted Dr Saqlain Gillani, national EPI manager, termed the approval of the revised PC-1 of federal EPI as “a positive sign” and expressed the hope that the amount will be released soon.

“By next week, the federal EPI will initiate the bidding process for vaccine procurement,” he said, adding that it will help Pakistan to stock up vaccines for at least next six months.

However, he denied accepting that the EPI Sindh is also facing shortage of other vaccines like BCG, OPV and tetanus. “There is no shortage of these vaccines in Sindh province,” said Gillani.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 17^th, 2015.