Health experts say vaccination campaign can prevent measles

LAHORE:Punjab Province has been able to thwart the spike in measles cases in the last four weeks owing to a number of targeted interventions, yet experts have advised a country-wide vaccination drive as the only answer to looming threat of outbreaks.

Experts also advised enhanced focus on urban and peri urban slums during a meeting of the EPI Steering Committee that finalised its recommendations under the chair of Director General Health Services Punjab Dr Ilyas Gondal at his office on Wednesday.

The steering committee is the apex technical forum that analyses the data, challenges and progress of vaccination programme, disease outbreak trends, and advises the programme on technical areas.

Director Expanded Programme on Immunisation Punjab Dr Mukhtar shared that measles cases in the last four weeks had dropped to just over 3,000, which were less than half of the cases reported in the preceding four weeks. Besides strengthening of surveillance system at teaching hospitals, Punjab had conducted a measles outbreak response in 148 selected UCs of Rawalpindi, Multan, Lahore and Sheikhupura.

The meeting was attended by renowned pediatricians from Children’s Hospital, Mayo Hospital, Services Hospital, public health experts from WHO, UNICEF and programme managers from the Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department.

The meeting, convened on directions from the Minister Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department Khawaja Imran Nazir, reviewed preparations for the introduction of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine in Punjab.

DG Health Dr Ilyas Gondal shared that Punjab and Sindh would introduce the HPV vaccine in their routine immunisation schedule in the year 2025 and this would be followed by a phase-wise introduction in AJK, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan in 2026-27.

Additional Director EPI Dr Samra Khurram shared that cervical cancer is the third most leading cancer in women of all ages in Pakistan and the second most common cancer in women of reproductive age group (15 – 44 years). In Pakistan, an estimated 5008 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer annually nearly 3,200 losing lives from the disease.

Dr Imran Qureshi from WHO said that in order to achieve measles/rubella free Punjab, the province needs to achieve at least 95% immunisation coverage. He said that due to a complex supply and demand equation, development of a robust implementation strategy was the need of the hour.