Year’s first polio drive to begin on Monday with aim to vaccinate 9m children in Sindh

Vowing to convince refusing parents to get their children vaccinated against polio this year, Health Minister Dr Azra Pechuho inaugurated 2019’s first polio vaccination drive on Friday by giving Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) drops to children at a dispensary in Gadap, an area notorious for refusals.

“Polio virus has been found in the sewage of Karachi and Sindh, which means that we need to continue vaccinating our children by giving them polio vaccine drops,” said Pechuho, after inaugurating the drive in Laasi Goth. “Fortunately, only one polio case was reported from Sindh last year but this year, we are hoping that not a single case would be reported.”

Around 9 million children in Sindh, including 2.4 million children in Karachi, would be vaccinated against polio during the seven-day-long drive starting from Monday, January 21 and ending on January 27.

The provincial health minister said that under a new strategy, special emphasis would be given to convince refusing parents to get their children vaccinated against polio as it is the final push to eradicate polio from Pakistan once and for all. She added that

Overall, a 99 per cent reduction in polio cases has been recorded in 2018. “There were 306 polio cases reported in Pakistan, with 30 cases in Sindh, in 2014, but they reduced to 10 cases in entire Pakistan with only one case in Sindh, but efforts are underway to eradicate this dreaded disease forever,” she said, adding that environmental samples for poliovirus in Sindh were still being tested positive, which was a cause of concern for the polio eradication initiative officials in Pakistan.

During the first polio drive of the current year, 50,000 polio workers with 12,500 vaccinators in Karachi would visit door to door and administer oral polio vaccine drops to the children, while 5,000 polio personnel and officials have also been deployed to protect polio workers.

Later, talking to journalists, the health minister said China had stopped the Anti Rabies Vaccine’s supply to the world, including Pakistan, due to which a global crisis of the ARV is being witnessed and Pakistan too is facing a shortage.

“We are making arrangements for the Anti Rabies Vaccine from alternate sources and have also requested the National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad to start production of ARV but they don’t have the capacity to produce the vaccine to meet the local consumption,” she said.

Responding to another query, Dr Pehchuho said Medico-Legal Officials (MLOs) were required at all the tertiary-care hospitals in the province where surgeries are performed but added that very few doctors like to come into the medico-legal section.