To capitalise on the best ever polio epidemiology, Pakistan’s Polio Eradication Programme is all-set to launch the fast phase of its final offensive against the crippling virus on July 10-13.
This was stated by Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination Secretary Muhammad Ayub Sheikh in a review meeting of the National Stop Transmission of Polio (N-STOP) programme here on Tuesday.
The review meeting was attended by District Polio Control Room (DPCR) focal persons from critical districts, National Coordinator of the Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC), 65 N-STOP officers, national leads of WHO and UNICEF, resident adviser of the Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Programme (FELTP) as well as the representative from the armed forces.
On the occasion, Secretary Ayub congratulated the programme on making substantial progress during the last low transmission season and urged for sustained performance everywhere and maintaining extreme degree of vigilance to detect and aggressively respond to the cunning virus.
During the meeting, it was informed that intense preparations are underway for a special targeted campaign in vulnerable pockets of 73 districts/towns/agencies across the country. The phase-1 of the campaign (July 10-13) covers Rawalpindi-Islamabad as well as selected areas in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP), FATA, AJK, Gilgit-Baltistan and interior Sindh.
The phase-2 (July 17-20) will cover eight districts of Balochistan, Karachi, Badin, Sujawal and Thatta; whereas the Quetta block will conduct the campaign from July 24 to 30. The programme will target a total of 10.44 million under five children (0.829 million in Punjab, four million in Sindh, 2.93 million in KP, 1.368 million in Balochistan, 0.342 million in FATA, 0.453 million in AJK, 0.132 million in GB and 0.31 million children in Islamabad.
A total of 75,000 personnel will strive to achieve the set targets across Pakistan including 8,026 area in-charges, 2,396 UC medical officers, 55,465 mobile, 3,168 fixed and 3,954 transit team members.
Earlier, FELTP Resident Adviser Dr Rana Jawad Asgher highlighted the role of N-STOP initiative in strengthening federal and provincial human resource which is assisting the government in controlling communicable diseases including, polio and vaccine preventable diseases.
Dr Rana Safdar, the NEOC for polio eradication, highlighted how the ‘one team’ approach adopted by the NEOC network had actualised polio turn around in the country. “This has clearly been a game changer bringing cases down from 306 to 54 in 2015 and lowest ever 20 in 2016. He said that the momentum has further been maintained in 2017 where the current case count of two compares to 13 during the corresponding period last year.
The N-STOP is a collaborative initiative of the Government of Pakistan, FELTP, World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta. The programme trains and deploys Government Public Health Officers in critical polio districts to serve as key technical support persons with the deputy commissioners.
The National EOC leadership has urged the teams to strive all out to make the best out of this important campaign. The leadership has also requested the communities and especially the parents to facilitate frontline workers (Sehat Muhafiz) in this noble cause.
Polio cases have decreased by over 99% since 1988, from an estimated 350, 000 cases then, to 37 reported cases in 2016. As a result of the global effort to eradicate the disease, more than 16 million people have been saved from paralysis.
It is pertinent to mention here that despite making steady and significant progress in recent years, Pakistan is still among the very few countries, which is yet to be declared polio free country.
