Concerted efforts required to eliminate vaccine-preventable diseases: Dr Azra

Despite progress in immunisation coverage, 100 percent vaccination coverage has yet not been achieved in Pakistan where many children are dying due to vaccine-preventable diseases, Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Pechuho said on Tuesday and called for making concerted efforts to eliminate vaccine-preventable diseases from the country.

Speaking at an annual EPI review meeting in Karachi on Tuesday, which was attended by representatives from national and provincial EPI programmes, Unicef, World Health Organisation (WHO), GAVI and Sindh’s Emergency Operation Cell (EOC), she said several successful vaccination drives had been launched in the country to control infectious diseases’ outbreaks, and cited the example of Covid-19 vaccination, due to which Pakistan was able to contain the pandemic.

Dr Pechuho also lauded the efforts to achieve target coverage with Typbar-TCV, a typhoid conjugate vaccine (TCV) in the major cities such as Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar, but said it was critical that the coverage for this vaccine was more widespread.

“It is crucial for us as a nation to reach the target population for the Covid-19 vaccination and provincial health teams should be congratulated on running one of the best vaccination drives in the country.”

The provincial health minister said the health department was also looking at the possibility of introducing other vaccines to its EPI programme, including HPV to target cervical cancer, and expressed the hope that GAVI would support the province in this regard.

She further said the it was the national responsibility of the authorities to reach every “zero dose children”, and the Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) was working to reach out to every missed child in the province.

Dr Pechuho said Pakistan as a nation needs a birth register and it is very critical that this is made part of the immunisation programme. “I’m hopeful that we are able to achieve that with involvement of Nadra and with the support from the federal government.”

The health minister maintained that it was the right time to eliminate polio from Pakistan, and a last push was required to achieve this goal as the virus had been confined to certain areas and some populations.

“Even though we have a lot of internal movement of population, we still have to achieve the elimination of polio as Pakistan and Afghanistan are the last two countries left with polio. The EPI is integral to our national health and it is unacceptable that we are losing children to measles or meningitis in this day and age.”