District administrations directed to remove hiccups in PEI

PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Secretary Kazim Niaz on Friday directed district administrations to ensure smooth conduct of anti-polio drive in respective districts and address the challenges in stamping out the scourge from the region.

He said this while chairing Provincial Task Force Meeting (PTF) held here at the Civil Secretariat.

Inspector General Police Sanaullah Abbasi, Chairperson, Standing Committee on Health Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, Rabia Basri, Secretary Health, Imtiaz Hussain Shah, Secretary Elementary & Secondary Education, Nadeem Aslam Chaudhry, Additional Secretary Health (Polio) & Coordinator for Emergency Operation Centre, Abdul Basit, DG Health, Dr, Muhammad Niaz and representatives of the partners’ staff members were present.

The chief secretary said that a lot of efforts, coordination and resources goes into every round of anti-polio campaign and it was important to ensure optimal use and benefits of all these efforts by ensuring a

strict monitoring and accountability system in place at all levels.

He commended the work done by commissioners and deputy commissioners for polio eradication in their respective regions despite challenges and called for adopting issue-based strategies to plug the remaining gaps in wiping out the scourge from the region.

The senior official underscored the need to intensify the efforts for reaching the finishing line. He said the dream of polio-free Pakistan would be translated into reality with the teamwork and the exiting support from all line departments and government functionaries. He thanked the partners including UNICEF, WHO for supporting the government in the noble cause and for preventing the children from lifelong paralysis under the Polio Eradication Initiative or PEI.

Kazim Niaz said that achievement has been made in terms of declining polio cases in the province. He directed the district administrations to build on the existing baseline set so as to stop polio outbreaks and virus transmission in the province in future.

Earlier, Additional Secretary Health (Polio) and Coordinator EOC, Abdul Basit, briefed the forum in detail about the readiness status for the upcoming anti-polio drive to be kicked off in the province from January 11, 2021.

He apprised the meeting that over 7.57 million children under five would be vaccinated in January campaign for which a total of 28,889 teams have been constituted out of which 25,734 are mobile teams, 1913 fixed teams, 1109 transit teams and 133 roaming teams.

The meeting was informed that adequate security measures had been taken and around 40,000 police personnel would be deployed with the teams to ensure smooth conduct of the campaign and a safe and secure environment to the frontline workers.

The senior official said that over 70 per cent decline had been observed in the province in reporting of polio cases with 22 cases this year against 73 cases reported last year at this point of time.