Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, expressing displeasure over “negligible progress” in the past year in eliminating polio from Sindh province, stressed the need for addressing the problem. However, he expressed confidence that the province would soon be turned polio-free, said a statement.
“It is painful that Punjab, Balochistan, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) have improved, but Sindh has shown a negligible progress. This shows that there is some problem which we have to address,” the chief minister said at a high-level meeting here on Monday.
EPI PD Fayaz Jatoi told the meeting that some 19 polio cases were detected all over the country in 2016—eight each in Sindh and KP, two in FATA, and one in Balochistan. There was no polio case detected in Punjab, he added. He informed that out of eight cases reported in Sindh, seven were detected in rural areas and one in Karachi.
The chief minister was told that there were 54 polio cases reported in the country in 2015, which included 12 in Sindh, 17 in KP, 16 in FATA, seven in Balochistan and two in Punjab.
The meeting was informed that the anti-polio campaign conducted in end of September and December 2016 had the target to cover 2.2 million children in Karachi and 6.1 million children in rural areas of the province.
“In Karachi, out of 2.2 million, 1.7 per cent refused polio vaccination,” it said.
Murad Ali Shah, expressed his displeasure, stated that the relevant district administration has the responsibility to ensure 100 per cent coverage.
Sindh Health Minister Dr Sikandar Mendhro, MNA Dr Azra Pechuho, Provincial Polio Coordinator Shahnaz Wazir Ali, Chief Secretary Rizwan Memon, Sindh IGP AD Khawaja, Karachi AIG Mushtaq Maher, Health Secretary Fazal Pechuho, all divisional commissioners, PPHI CEO, representatives of the federal government, and the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Unicef attended the meeting.