Fighting polio: Vaccination through IPV injections from next month

Training of health workers on how to administer IPV will complete this week

ISLAMABAD: Health workers will start vaccination through inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) injections in the Islamabad Capital Territory from July 1.

Technical and paramedical staff is being provided training on storage and administration of IPV injections since May 2.

Senior health official Dr Azhar Khan said that the programme was meant to provide training required by health workers to administer polio vaccine through injections instead of drops.

He told The Express Tribune that multiple training sessions had been organised in which ICT trainers would give training to paramedical staff belonging to the Capital Development Authority (CDA) as well as its own staff.



Dr Khan said that another such training programme was in the pipeline and ICT administration was working on it with the help of health ministry.

The ICT administration’s focal person on the Extended Programme on Immunization (EPI), Dr Zulfiqar told The Express Tribune that a total of 72 doctors and paramedical staff from the ICT and the CDA were being trained under the programme.

He said that the training would continue till the third week of June and on July 1, trained teams would secure vaccinations from the EPI cell to begin the vaccination process.

“There are three stages for any vaccination scheme, first is at the provincial level, second at district level, while third stage is carried out at the grassroots level,” Dr Zulfiqar said.  “The ongoing training programme targets the grassroots level,” he added.

Dr Zulfiqar said that the lessons were aimed at familiarising lady health visitors with ways to properly store and handle vaccinations.

Dr Zulfiqar said that the vaccination process would be carried out in the ICT. He said that it would not be a targeted vaccination campaign as teams could not visit each and every house because there was a danger of vaccinations getting expired in the current weather.

“Camps will be set up in the capital territory and parents will be invited to get their children vaccinated,” he said.

“A routine immunisation will also be carried out against DPT3 for which every child older than 14 weeks of age will be immunised against diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough) and tetanus,” Dr Zulfiqar added.

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