ISLAMABAD: Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) planned to launch campaign against measles in October, targeting around 30 million children of less than five years of age in order to boost the immunity of the population.
According to official sources, measles cases in Pakistan had shown a decline since the introduction of EPI programme in Pakistan with two doses of measles containing vaccine being administered at nine months and 15 months of age.
In the wake of the decreasing burden of measles cases in the country, national follow-up measles campaign was implemented in 2014-15 to improve population immunity. The reported measles coverage had improved from 86% in 2015 to 90% in 2017.
They said that despite various efforts to strengthen routine immunisation, measles cases had been reported from around the country and as an immediate measure in 2017, on the request of the provinces, World Health Organisation (WHO) conducted measles risk assessment of all districts using the WHO – CDC tool.
Based on this assessment, mop-up activities were collaborated in the provinces with the support of Ministry of National Health Services Regulations and Coordination in terms of measles vaccine and logistics to the provinces and federating areas for mitigating the measles outbreaks apart from the vaccines issued for routine immunisation.
Following risk assessment, approximately one million children in Balochistan, around two million children in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and over 1.4 million children in Punjab were vaccinated through outbreak response.
Looking into the higher rate of disease burden in Sindh, particularly in Karachi, mop-up campaign was conducted during the last quarter of 2017 and approximately 1.3 million children were vaccinated. The quality of Karachi campaign was appreciated by global partners as well.
They said that the surveillance systems in these countries were not efficient enough to capture measles cases. A few countries were not reporting measles cases at all in comparison to Pakistan where there was strong surveillance system.
During the recent years various steps had been taken by the government to strengthen disease surveillance in the country.
They said that the government had allocated resources for strengthening VPD surveillance in terms of hiring technical human resource and capacity building of the newly recruited staff along with refresher trainings of existing work force.
Development of management information system, including VPD surveillance, had resulted in enhanced reporting of suspected cases, improved sample collection rate and laboratory confirmation of cases especially in Punjab and KP while Sindh and Balochistan were following the suit to improve VPD surveillance.
The vaccines require certain temperature for which the cold chain had been improved as per international standards and was also certified by ISO 9001-2008.
In this context, the cold chain had been equipped with data loggers and end to end temperature mapping. Additional central temperature monitoring system had been installed across the country.
For an accountable vaccine and cold chain management, an electronic system like vaccine logistics management information system had been established and rolled out throughout the country.
They said that the Ministry of National Health Services had initiated the process to make arrangements for such a huge campaign in the country to decrease the burden of measles while EPI would ensure the quality of campaign.
However, to further reduce disease burden, measles outbreak response was planned by provinces for April, 2018 for which Measles and Rubella Initiative (M&RI) had been notified on February 26 for mobilising immediate resources and support to Pakistan in high risk areas of the country.
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