Pakistan has reported 20 polio cases since this April, and all of them belong to southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while positive environmental samples have also been reported in all the provinces, said the Sindh chief minister on Monday.
However, CM Syed Murad Ali Shah pointed out, it is a great achievement for our province that no polio case has been reported here in more than 30 months. Shah made these remarks during a meeting with a delegation of the Polio Oversight Board (POB) that was led by its chairman, Dr Christopher Elias. The chief executive of the province also inaugurated an anti-polio campaign that will last until December 4.
By administering polio drops to children at the CM House, he launched the drive against the crippling disease in eight “very high-risk districts”: seven of Karachi Division and one of Hyderabad Division.
Health Minister Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho told the meeting that 2,771,089 children under the age of five would be vaccinated during the week-long campaign, while more than 27,000 polio workers have been deployed for the campaign.
According to her, 2,943 male and 113 female security personnel have been deployed. She said that an additional 26 senior field staff from other divisions of the province have been deployed for monitoring and supportive supervision in the very high-risk and poor-performing union committees.
The CM said Pakistan is one of the two polio-endemic countries in the world, along with Afghanistan. “Sindh’s last polio case was reported in Jacobabad on July 14, 2020, while Karachi’s last case was reported in District Malir’s Landhi neighbourhood on June 9, 2020.”
He pointed out that the province had been repeatedly returning negative environment samples over the past one year, except in one instance this August, when a positive sample was found in the Landhi neighbourhood.
The CM said that after the first case was reported this April in North Waziristan, Sindh’s Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) increased vigilance at the entry and exit points of the provincial borders, and vaccinated 1,280,495 children, including 30,937 belonging to southern KP.
“If we continue with the same momentum, we’ll see further significant results, but we mustn’t get complacent and must continue the hard work,” he said, adding that children can be saved from childhood diseases like polio through vaccination.
He sought every stakeholder’s help to raise awareness for the cause. He said the polio eradication programme’s efforts have resulted in reducing refusals and missed children by more than 60 per cent, but the rate must be brought down further, especially in Karachi.
At the conclusion of the event, the CM urged parents to cooperate with the polio teams arriving on their doorstep for vaccinating their children and help save the country’s future by eradicating polio.
The POB delegation comprised Dr Ahmed Al-Mandhari, Michael Galway, Dr Hamid Jafari, Dr Palitha Mahipala, Steven Lauwerier and Aziz Memon.