August round of anti-polio drive launched

PESHAWAR: Minister for Health and Finance Taimur Saleem Jhagra has said that the government is struggling to stamp out poliovirus from the region and stressed the need for tailored strategies to cater to ground challenges.

He said this while co-chairing the Provincial Task Force Meeting on Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI) along with Chief Secretary Shehzad Bangash here Monday.

National Emergency Operation Centre representative, Col Asjad Baloch, Rep of HQ 11 Corps, AIG Police KP, Muhammad Ali Babakhel, Special Secretary Health KP Dr Farooq, Secretary E&S, Mohtasim Billah Shah, Secretary Population Welfare, all commissioners, all deputy commissioners, Additional Secretary Health (polio) Asif Raheem, Deputy Coordinator Zeeshan Khan, Team Leads WHO, UNICEF, Nstop, Technical focal person EOC KP Dr Imtiaz Shah and other officials were also present on the occasion.

Taimur Jhagra said that polio cases reporting in the province is a wake-up call that needs remedial measures on a war footing. He asked programme managers to encourage district teams to highlight real issues and challenges including fake finger marking and missed children so that they can be addressed by adopting tailored strategies.

The chief secretary said: “Of late we have seen multiple challenges in interrupting virus circulation in the province, yet we are determined to overcome these challenges and will succeed in achieving the goal.”

The senior official appreciated incentivised approach in the southern KP, saying that it should continue and strongly recommended disciplinary action against poor performers across the board along with real-time data reflecting the true picture of missed children.

Earlier, Additional Secretary Health (Polio) Asif Raheem gave a detailed presentation on the readiness status of the upcoming August campaign, saying that the campaign has been preponed in the province in view of virus isolation from the environmental sites in Nowshera, Swat, Peshawar and Bannu districts.

He said that fake finger marking, missed children and low routine immunization coverages were the biggest programme challenges. Sharing the modality of the campaign, he said that the fIPV plus OPV campaign will be carried out in Bannu, Lakki Marwat, North Waziristan, DI Khan, Tank and South Waziristan wherein a total of 1058067 children under five will be vaccinated with oral polio vaccine including 994583 kids, who will be administered fractional dose of inactivated polio vaccine (fIPV), to boost their immunity against polio and stop virus circulation in the environment, the meeting was informed.

A total of 3016 trained teams have been constituted to administer fIPV to children at the outreach centres whereas 5221 teams were formed for administration of Oral Polio Vaccine, he added.

He said the second phase of the campaign will be carried out in 29 districts wherein more than 6.2 million children will be immunized against polio for which a total of 25485 teams have been established out of which 22810 were mobile teams, 1631 fixed, 933 transit teams and 111 were roaming teams.