Innovative methods stressed to ensure vaccination

 Anti-polio campaign launched

PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Deputy Speaker Mehr Taj Roghani has said innovative methods should be adopted to ensure vaccination to every child with specific focus on new-born babies.

She said that every missed child was a lost opportunity for polio eradication. She said polio could be eradicated by vaccinating each and every child against this crippling disease. Mehr Taj Roghani expressed these views while inaugurating anti-polio campaign here Monday at the Lady Reading Hospital Peshawar. 

Also present on the occasion were Coordinator Emergency Operation Centre Akbar Khan, Team Lead UNICEF Dr Johar, Dean LRH Dr Arshad Javed, WHO Representative Dr Abdul Salam and Technical Focal Person BMGF Dr Imtiaz Ali Shah.

Mehr Taj Roghani said unfortunately Pakistan was among the last three endemic countries along with Nigeria and Afghanistan where the virus was still circulating in certain reservoir areas. She hoped that the transmission would be stopped soon if the teams continued to work with the same zeal and spirit.

“Polio is a stigma for the country and the sooner we get rid of it the better it is for our children”, she said, adding that provincial government was fully committed to stamp out the crippling disease from the soil and was taking every possible measures to achieve this goal.

She laid special emphasis on improving routine immunization as polio vaccine would work more effectively if children were inoculated for other vaccine preventable diseases.

EOC Coordinator Akbar Khan said that it was the first campaign of the year which was held in every district of the province. He asked all stakeholders, including the media, to support the national cause and help in achieving polio free certification by 2020.

He said total target for January campaign is 56,56,083 for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for which total 17,767 teams had been constituted, adding that campaign was held in the entire province except for a few union councils of Chitral, Upper Dir and Abbotabad that were snow-bound where campaign will be held later.

Akbar Khan said that Peshawar had remained polio-free since February 2016 and local virus transmission had been stopped as the virus currently found in Peshawar was not local and was linked to Lahore and Rawalpindi viruses instead, which was a big breakthrough.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has shown remarkable improvement in terms of reporting polio cases as the province recorded 23 cases in 2011, 27 in 2012, 11 in 2013, 68 in 2014, 15 in 2015 and 8 in 2016, he informed.

Earlier, president Pakistan Paediatric Association Prof Dr Irshad, Prof Dr Fazal Rahim and Prof Dr Aqeel Khattak inaugurated polio campaigns at Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) Peshawar and Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC), respectively by administering polio drops to the children.