Districts ordered to identify kids deprived of polio vaccination

LAHORE:The Punjab Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) has ordered districts to prepare a list of all children deprived of polio vaccination in the recently concluded polio National Immunisation Drive so that an effective follow up is done to cover them in the next campaign.

The directions were given at a review meeting presided over by the EOC Coordinator and head of the polio programme in Punjab Adeel Tasawwar on Thursday. The health officials of the 36 districts participated in the review meeting, which was organised to review the quality of the recently concluded national polio immunisation campaign, via a video link. During the review, the districts briefed the EOC on the status of missed children and other pre as well as intra campaign indicators.

Speaking on the occasion the EOC coordinator stressed on laid special emphasis on the missed children coverage, highlighting the need to prioritize the persistently missed children. He directed the districts' authorities to remove all such children from targets which are missed for more than two campaigns.

The EOC coordinator inquired from the districts about reasons of missed children and directed to initiate an analysis to reach the root-cause of the problem. He called for name-wise development of lists detailing addresses and contact number of families of children missed in the polio campaigns so that a comprehensive follow-up is done to cover them in the next campaign. The EOC coordinator warned officials against data fudging, instructing them to probe such matters and take action against officials at any level. He instructed the districts to focus on low performing union councils especially those where indicators are constantly eroding, by ensuring strict supervision and monitoring.