Sindh gives kids a fighting chance with IPV

Inactivated polio vaccine to be included in health department’s routine immunisation programme

KARACHI:

Sindh has finally included the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) in its routine immunisation programme, assuring health officers, parents and international organisations of their plan to make the province 'polio-free'.

Health department officials have been asked by the federal government and international organisations to introduce the IPV in routine immunisation, but the provincial government introduced the vaccination against the crippling disease among children in July of this year.

The inclusion of the IPV was launched at a ceremony held at the Marriot hotel on Wednesday, where top provincial health officials, including Sindh Health Minister Jam Mahtab Hussain Dahar, secretary Saeed Ahmed Mangnejo, health director-general health Dr Syed Hasan Murad Shah, provincial programme manager for the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI), Dr Mazhar Khamisani, officials of the World Health Organization and others were present at the event.

"Polio is still a threat to our society," said Dahar. He said that the Sindh government is committed to eradicating the disease from the province this year.

Last year, 30 cases were reported from Sindh and most of them were reported in Karachi. The minister said that only four cases have been detected this year but not a single case surfaced in the provincial capital.

Dahar said the provincial health department, with the help of international organisations, has trained hundreds of doctors, paramedics and other health workers to properly inject the vaccine. Hospitals across the province have been supplied the new vaccine, according to him.



"We want to make Sindh polio-free by this year," he assured. He said that the IPV is better and more effective than polio drops, justifying that cases surfaced despite the administration of the polio drops. "We are 100 per cent sure that there will be no cases after the introduction of this vaccine," he claimed.

The introduction of the IPV in routine immunisation is a part of the Polio Eradication and Endgame Strategic Plan 2013-2018. This Global Polio Eradication Initiative programme was developed after consultation with donors and health experts after the directives given by the World Health Assembly in May, 2012. The aim is to have a polio-free world by 2018. This is to be achieved by introducing at least one dose of IPV in the routine immunisation programme of the 126 countries currently using the trivalent oral polio vaccine.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, Dr Khamisani said that the immunity gap will be ended with the addition of the IPV in the routine immunisation programme. He said that the IPV has been made compulsory and will be injected in newborn babies within 14 weeks of birth. Dr Khamisani said that more than 1.4 million children across Sindh will be administered the IPV by September this year.

"All is set to launch the IPV across the province," Mangnejo said. He said that that the health department plans to reach every child of the province.

Punjab has already introduced the IPV in its routine immunisation programme, while the federal health ministry has requested all provinces to introduce it by mid-September.

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