ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Health was stunned to hear on Friday that hepatitis vaccines worth Rs 1 billion have been stolen from the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the case has been forwarded to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for inquiry.
Committee chairwoman Kalsoom Parveen expressed doubts whether the vaccines had even been bought in the first place, saying that perhaps the purchase was only shown on papers. She said that 17 official vehicles of the National AIDS Control programme were misused by the Health Ministry’s high officials. The committee directed the ministry to hand over these vehicles to the provinces.
Baseer Achakzai, the National Nutrition Programme manager, informed the committee that over 70,000 children in flood-hit areas of Sindh were malnourished and underweight. He said, “Thirty to 40,000 children may die in coming days if they aren’t provided adequate nutrition”.
Altaf Bosan, manager of the Polio Control Programme, informed the committee that the lack of coordination between the provinces and the federal government in vaccinating children against polio had resulted in the registration of 111 cases of polio this year. These included 68 cases from FATA, 17 from Sindh – 10 alone from Ghotki – seven from Punjab and 22 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Federal Health Secretary Khushnood Akhtar Lashari warned that every district coordination officer (DCO) would be responsible for any further polio case registered in the country, and ministry would take serious action against them.
