Polio eradication measures: Vaccination counters to be set up at entry, exit points of province

LAHORE:The Punjab government has stepped up its efforts to ensure the complete eradication of polio and has decided to establish polio vaccination counters at all 14 entry and exit points of the province.

The decision was taken during a meeting of the Provincial Taskforce on Polio Eradication held at the Civil Secretariat. Provincial Ministers Khawaja Salman Rafique, Khawaja Imran Nazir, Chief Secretary Zahid Akhtar Zaman, Secretary Health Ali Jan, Punjab Polio Prevention Programme head Khizar Afzal and officers concerned attended the meeting.

The participants agreed to raise the target of routine immunisation to 95 percent for prevention of polio and other diseases. Khawaja Salman Rafique said that during the next anti-polio campaign, all the provincial ministers would be present in the field with the polio teams. He mentioned that a different mechanism for polio eradication would be devised for each district. He said that the deputy commissioners, and CEOs health should inform about the problems hindering the desired goals of polio eradication.

Khawaja Imran Nazir said that if needed, a health emergency would be declared in the province in connection with polio. He said that the mobile population is the main source of spread of the virus, adding that every child entering the boundaries of Punjab would be administered polio vaccine.

The chief secretary directed the health department to take action against the staff who showed poor performance in the anti-polio campaigns. He said that eradication of polio is a national agenda, and there is no room for negligence’. He remarked that the child who is left without polio vaccine becomes a ‘problem child’ for the whole world. He asserted that an unconventional plan has to be adopted to achieve required results from the anti-polio campaign.