Districts asked to chalk out new anti-polio plans

LAHORE : Punjab Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) Coordinator and head of the polio eradication programme in Punjab Khizer Afzaal Chaudhry has urged districts to chalk out new plans with greater emphasis on high-risk mobile population movements so that the quality of upcoming polio eradication campaign is improved.

The EOC Coordinator was speaking to the officials of district health authorities of Rawalpindi and Attock in the aftermath of a special campaign conducted in both districts in response to positive sample in the garrison city. The CEOs of Rawalpindi and Attock as well as partner staff from both districts participated in the meeting on a video link.

Issuing directives to the district health administrations, the Punjab EOC head stressed on reviewing movement patterns of high-risk mobile population movements and called for identification of additional transit sites in Rawalpindi’s Taxila Tehsil. ‘Rawalpindi is far more sensitive than any other area in Punjab due to its proximity with polio hotspots and frequent movement of high-risk population. After isolation of wild polio virus in environmental samples recently it is now an area of international concern’, he underlined.

The EOC coordinator called on both districts to work on a granular plan for improving campaign quality before the start of next polio eradication campaign. He assured the districts that Punjab EOC was ready to provide every support in lieu of additional resources and human resource for deployment at the transit sites.

The EOC head instructed the CEOs to monitor the campaign themselves and recommended action against officials as well as workers who were under-performing. Khizer Ch suggested exclusion of under-performing officials from the next supplementary immunisation activity.

The EOC head instructed the officials to focus on improving the catch-up days’ quality through ‘sweep strategy’. He underlined that entire area must be swept especially those houses which had been marked as having ‘zero children’ or ‘not-available’ children. The EOC head directed the district officials to supervise area incharges and underlined that percentage of language appropriate teams must be increased in migrants’ settlements.

Punjab has recently wrapped up a campaign after polio virus was detected in one of the environmental sites in Rawalpindi.

The campaign called Outbreak Response (OBR) was held in five tehsils of Rawalpindi, four tehsils of Attock and one union council of Mianwali.

Vaccination campaign was held in Fateh Jang, Hazro, Attock and Hassan Abdal of Attock District. While in Rawalpindi, the campaign was organised in Gujar Khan, Rawalpindi Cantonment, Rawalpindi City, Rawalpindi Rural and Taxila tehsils. In Mianwali, the campaign was held in Afghan refugee camp. Over 1.96 million children were vaccinated in the campaign.