War on polio: IPV campaign launched in eight districts

The campaign will extended to other districts from July.

LAHORE: Pakistan is catching up with the rest of the world in its attempts to eradicate poliomyelitis from the country, Adviser to Chief Minister on Health Khawaja Salman Rafique said on Monday.

He was speaking at the inauguration ceremony of the IPV (Inactivated Polio Vaccine) campaign at Mian Munshi Hospital. He said the IPV campaign was a milestone project.

The campaign has been launched in 140 union councils in eight districts – Lahore, Rawalpindi, Mianwali, Multan, DG Khan, Muzaffargarh, Rahim Yar Khan and Rajanpur – and will continue till June 16. As many as 901 outreach teams will work at 224 locations to vaccinate 364,033 children between four and 23 months of age.



Rafique said four of the 306 polio cases reported in the country in 2014 were from the Punjab. “This year, so far, there has been no case in the province. We hope and pray that the number stays the same till the end of the year.”

Rafique said polio had become a source of embarrassment for Pakistan all over the world. “Being named as one of three countries in the world that still had polio is most distressing.”

He appreciated the efforts of polio teams and the EPI for making Pakistan polio free.

As of July 2015, IPV will be extended to all districts in the Punjab as part of routine immunisation. Rafique said that IPV and the oral polio vaccine had been used together elsewhere to eradicate the virus completely.

The OPV remains the main method to eradicate polio. He said several studies had shown that children who had received IPV as well as the OPV had the best immunity against polio.

He said children should be administered a dose each of the IPV and the OPV every time as it was offered.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 9^th, 2015.