Dr. Jean Marc Olive, Chairman Technical Advisory Group (TAG), a highest technical body advising Pakistan on polio eradication programme has hailed the remarkable progress made in vaccinating FATA children against polio virus during 2015 and called for continuous efforts to sustain progress in polio eradication in FATA.
He was addressing a meeting of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) FATA held at the FATA Secretariat Peshawar.
National EOC Coordinator Dr. Rana Safdar, Secretary Law & Order/ EOC FATA Coordinator Shakeel Qadir, Assistant Director EPI Dr. Ikhtiar Ali, WHO Acting national Team Leader Dr. Zubair Mufti, and other high ranking officers from partner organizations, including UNICEF, Bill and Melanda Gates, World Health Organization (WHO) and FATA Secretariat were also present in the meeting.
The Secretary Law & Order/ EOC FATA Coordinator Shakeel Qadir presented the success figures and specific challenges faced during the recent rounds of anti-polio campaign.
He informed the forum that not-available-children had been a major challenge, whereas, strategy of vaccinating children at local hujras was not proving effective in reducing number of polio cases. He said the first time launched door-to-door campaigning strategy in North Waziristan, strict accountability mechanism, focus on influencing parents of not-available-children to confirm vaccination, measures taken by Pakistan Army to secure anti-polio campaigners and reduction in the fear of FATA citizen due to improved security situation had been the change factors that helped in reducing inaccessibility, as well as, the number of polio cases in 2015.