Minister for National Health Services Saira Afzal Tarar has said that Pakistan had made a tremendous progress towards eradication of polio, saying it could be judged from the fact that only 20 cases were reported last year which was the lowest number ever since in the history of the country.
She expressed these views while chairing a high-level review meeting on polio eradication in preparation for International Monitoring Board Review of Pakistan’s Polio Performance here on Wednesday.
The meeting was attended by Health Secretary Muhammad Ayub Shaikh, Health Director General Dr Assad Hafeez, National Coordinator of National Polio Emergency Centre Dr Rana Muhammad Safdar, representative of Pakistan Army and senior officials from international partner agencies.
She said so far this year we have had two cases compared to 11 cases in the corresponding period last year. When this government took office, Pakistan was experiencing a raging outbreak of polio with unprecedented number of polio cases. We took it as a challenge as it was the question of health and wellbeing of our children and our prestige in the comity of nations, she added.
In a detailed presentation, the meeting was informed that environmental surveillance to detect polio virus has been enhanced with addition of more sites to collect sewage samples. An aggressive strategy has been employed to track and vaccinate missed children.
Arrangements are in place at Pak-Afghan border entry points to vaccinate children. Currently children under 10 years of age were being immunized. It was advised in the meeting to look into the possibility of enhancing the age bracket from 10 years to include adults.
The meeting noted the urgent need to strengthen routine immunization services. In this context, Tarar shared that she will be undertaking visits of Provinces to discuss with the Provincial leadership measures required to improve routine immunization services for children. The minister said that the federal government had made all out effort to ensure uninterrupted provision of vaccines for EPI, adding we have ensured that there is no dearth of resources in this context.
Earlier, National Coordinator of National Polio Emergency Centre Dr Rana Muhammad Safdar gave a detailed briefing on the current status of polio eradication in the country.
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