Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah inaugurated a polio vaccination drive in the province by administering oral polio vaccine (OPV) to a few children at the Chief Minister’s House on Saturday, and urged the parents to get their children vaccinated against polio and other vaccine-preventable diseases.
“Polio has been eradicated from the entire world except Pakistan and Afghanistan. Therefore, we as a nation have to join hands and resolve to eradicate this crippling disease from our country,” he said in his message to the people after administering OPV and Vitamin-A drops to children to start the six-day camping.
The inauguration ceremony was attended by Health Minister Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho, PSCM Sajid Jamal Abro, Commissioner Karachi Iftikhar Shallwani, Additional IGP Karachi Ghulam Nabi Memon, Secretary for Health Kazim Jatoi, Coordinator EOC Sindh Fayaz Abbasi, Dr Altaf Bosan of the TLF Islamabad, Dr Shaukat Chandio of Unicef, Dr Zara of WHO, Dr Raj Kumar and others.
With a heavy heart, the chief minister said the entire world had eliminated polio, except Pakistan and Afghanistan, which was quite painful. “This is a crippling disease and cripples children, but sorry to say most of the parents do not cooperate with the government to administer polio drops to their children,” he said and added that this year 64 cases of polio had been detected in Pakistan, and 21 of them belonged to Sindh.
He urged the people to cooperate with the polio teams, which would visit them under their door-to-door campaign to administer polio drops to under-five-year-old children. “We all have to join hands to eradicate polio to save our children from physical disability,” he said and called upon parents to administer polio vaccines to their children under COVID-19 SOPs.
The Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for Polio in Sindh has started the province-wide OPV campaign, which will run from August 15 to 21, 2020.
The campaign will take place in all 29 districts of Sindh with a total target population of 9.26 million children under five years of age.
Also, 8.3 million children from six months to five years of age will also be given Vitamin A drops to boost their immunity levels. A total of 49,781 workers and 8,497 area supervisors will be deployed in the province for house-to-house vaccination.
All COVID-prevention SOPs will be followed during the campaign, which include the checking of workers’ temperature before being deployed, use of hand sanitisers, workers knocking on doors using a pen or a ruler rather than their hands, and not handling the children directly.
These campaigns are of the utmost importance as we must give children the oral polio vaccine to save them from polio and to ensure a healthy future for them.
“lt is absolutely necessary that children receive these life-saving vaccines and l request all parents to step forward and allow polio teams to administer polio drops plus vitamin A to children aged under five years and also complete the routine immunisation course for their children,” Shah said. “This is what we need to do to ensure a healthy future for the children of Sindh and the children of Pakistan.”
