XDR typhoid vaccination to start on Nov 18 as cases cross 10,000 figure

A vaccination drive against Extensively Drug Resistant (XDR) typhoid will be launched on November 18 in Sindh to reach over 10 million children upto 15 years of age as XDR typhoid cases cross the figure of 10,000 in the province, officials said on Friday.

Prof Dr Jamal Raza, the director of the National Institute of Child Health (NICH) and former president of the Pakistan Pediatric Association’s (PPA) Sindh chapter, told journalists that the upcoming typhoid campaign was extremely important and the PPA had asked the parents to get their children vaccinated against this drug resistant form of typhoid.

He was speaking at a health reporters’ orientation session on polio jointly organised by the Emergency Operation Centre for Polio and Expanded Program on Immunisation (EPI) Sindh at the EPI Hall.

Prof Raza said the typhoid campaign would take place from November 18 to November 30 and would vaccinate over 10.1 million children from nine months to 15 years of age. He added that polio eradication was a national cause and we all must play our part to see us over the finish line.

Around 20 health journalists from across major news channels and papers attended the session. Coordinator EOC Sindh Rehan Baloch, Project Director EPI Dr Akram Sultan, Technical Focal Person EOC Sindh Dr Ahmed Ali Shaikh, Dr Shoukat Ali, Team Lead UNICEF Sindh and others conducted the session.

On the occasion, Project Director EPI Dr Akram Sultan said this is a very important campaign, as drug resistant typhoid is prevalent and through this vaccine children will develop long-term immunity and will be protected from typhoid fever. He appealed to the media to support this campaign and raise awareness among parents regarding childhood vaccinations.

Dr Ahmed Ali Shaikh from EOC Sindh gave a presentation on polio strategies, saying: “In 2014 we had 30 cases in Sindh, in 2018 there was only one. Yes there have been difficulties in 2019 but we have a golden opportunity to turn this around from December onward as there will be regular campaigns from December to June which have been planned very carefully to intercept virus transmission.”

Coordinator EOC Sindh Rehan Baloch said that there would be a case response campaign from November 4 in Hyderabad, Jamshoro, Matiari, Jaccobabd, Dadu and SBA with a target of 1.7 million children.

Following this, there will be a nation-wide campaign from the 16th of December and in Sindh, nine million children (2.4 million in Karachi) under 5 years of age will be receiving OPV.

General Secretary PPA Sindh Prof Dr Khalid Shafi said that since there had been a campaign gap, many people were no actively seeking polio vaccination. He further said that through the help of the PPA, more than 30 private hospitals and 50 private pediatric clinics were providing polio vaccinations free of cost during campaigns, even during consultation time in the evening.

Abid Hasan, media officer at the EOC Sindh, said that resistance in communities was because of repeated campaigns as well as negative social media videos which damaged the programme significantly; however, as there had been a gap in campaigns, this resistance should be less in the next campaign and we need the media to help us to increase demand for vaccination. He said Pakistan and Afghanistan were now only two countries that were left where polio cases, but we had a golden opportunity now to turn the tide and get polio eradication on track.