First polio vaccination drive of year starts

Islamabad: The first nationwide polio vaccination campaign of 2019 starts across Pakistan today (Monday). During this campaign, a total of 260,000 frontline workers will go door-to-door across all provinces and towns to ensure more than 39 million children under the age of five receive two drops of the vaccine which will protect them against the poliovirus.

In 2018, Pakistan reported 12 cases of wild poliovirus including three from Dukki district in Balochistan; one each from Charsadda, Lakki Marwat, Gadap, and Khyber; and five from Bajaur tribal district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Despite major breakthroughs, the cunning poliovirus continues to survive, with sewage water samples collected from Karachi, Peshawar, Bannu, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Killa Abdullah, Pishin and Quetta testing positive for poliovirus during December. Genetic analysis reports from the Polio Virology Laboratory at the National Institute of Health confirm that the virus was able to take the road from current hotspots within country and in Afghanistan, posing risk for under-immunized children residing elsewhere.

According to the Prime Minister’s Focal Person on Polio Eradication Babar Bin Atta, “The government has a firm resolve to defeat poliovirus transmission through optimum utilization of this low transmission season. I am short of words to praise the efforts of polio workers and hope that they will perform their best in the first campaign of this year to fight this menace, once and for all.”

Considering the significance of this nationwide immunization campaign, the National Emergency Operations Centre has deployed 50 experts to facilitate preparedness and ground implementation of vaccination campaign activities by local teams in priority areas.

The campaign in Pakistan is synchronized with Afghanistan to ensure vaccination of all children on the move as well. The Technical Advisory Group (TAG) of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) reviewed Pakistan’s progress and gave recommendations for further improvement during the recently held technical review. The TAG recommended that the top priority of the programme should be to fully focus on reaching still missed children in core reservoir of the poliovirus through continued improvement of operations and capacitating frontline polio workers to reach and protect every missed child with the vital polio vaccine.

“We will address any remaining gaps in order to defeat the poliovirus. It’s very important that parents protect their children through repeated vaccinations, each time drops are offered,” stated Dr. Rana Muhammad Safdar, the National Coordinator of NEOC.