By Hasan Mansoor
KARACHI: The Sindh health ministry has planned a ‘case response campaign’ starting on Monday (today) in eight districts of the province which have either produced polio cases or deemed potential sanctuary for the crippling disease, officials said on Sunday.
The officials in the emergency operations centre (EOC) for polio in Sindh stated that it was conducting a case response campaign in Shikarpur, Sukkur, Ghotki, Khairpur, Jacobabad, Kashmore, Larkana and Qambar districts on Monday.
They said the campaign would continue for six days in addition to two days for a catch-up drive to target children who missed the main campaign.
A total of 2,460,323 children aged up to five years would be covered during the campaign, said an official.
“This special activity,” said the official “is in response to the cases that were reported in northern Sindh this year”.
Besides, he added, the districts where potential polio outbreak was feared in future had also been included in the campaign to save children there.
Sindh has four polio cases so far this year — one in Karachi, one in Jacobabad and two in Shikarpur.
The authorities are already carrying out special campaigns in Karachi by engaging communities and religious personalities; and putting thousands of policemen in place to secure volunteers and officials.
“We appeal to parents to cooperate with vaccinators in this important campaign as Pakistan is closer to polio eradication than ever before,” said an official in the EOC Sindh.
“We all must work together to eradicate this virus from Pakistan and the rest of the world.”
The officials said there had been more than 80 per cent reduction in polio cases, but “we must continue the hard work to make Sindh and Pakistan polio free”.
“Our vaccinators are going to brave the heat in the holy month of Ramazan to carry out this essential activity and that should be appreciated,” the official said.
He added that no child should fall victim to a disease that was easily preventable through vaccination.
The officials said there were still 12 high-risk districts that represented the final polio reservoirs in the country and those districts were the focus of the low transmission season that concluded last month.
Almost half a million children who had been previously missed were reached due to gradual improvements in the programme quality and access since late 2014.
“Nine high quality campaigns that have been planned for the low transmission season (September 2015 to May 2016) are in steady progression to ensure every missed child is vaccinated during every campaign,” said an official.
He said the number of children paralysed by polio had further declined from 21 in March 2015 to seven cases by March this year.
The cases reported so far were from seven districts or agencies, compared to 12 those regions at the same time last year.
Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2016