By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has decided to deploy ‘dedicated assistant commissioners’ in 64 low performing union councils for anti-polio vaccination.
The dedicated assistant commissioners have been asked to take disciplinary action against the vaccinators showing laxity or those refusing anti-polio drops to their children to be able to eradicate the virus by end of this year in line with National Emergency Plan of the federal government.
Sources said that performance of 29 union councils was described worse in September and October immunisation campaign after which chief secretary ordered to assign the task of polio vaccination to additional assistant commissioners immediately in those areas.
“The province is 43 days away from the new year after which polio prevalence should be zero case,” said sources.
The chief secretary, who chaired a meeting of provincial task force recently, reviewed situation and issued instructions to commissioners to fulfil gaps in polio vaccination by giving administrative support and allocating resources to achieve the targets.
The meeting, which takes place every three months to discuss progress and obstacles in vaccination, decided to give monitory role to the assistant commissioners.
Sources said that the last two campaigns were of high quality, however, the drives were not up to the mark in the low performing union council. They said that 20 such union councils were situated in Bannu where vaccination coverage was below 95 per cent target population.
The district administration has been asked to strengthen security of field workers, who administer oral polio vaccine to children.
The chief secretary ordered action against the vaccinators and other officials for violating discipline and said that all the 1,020 union councils in the province must achieve the set goals in accordance with the national commitment to global community that there would be no polio case after December 2016, one of the commissioners said.
He said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was looking to strengthen polio teams and cover children in campaigns planned for November 23 and December 19.
“The coming two months are crucial and we have to vaccinate all 5.6 million children below five years with the help of 16,000 health workers during door-to-door campaigns to save them from virus,” said the commissioner.
The chief secretary praised overall performance with regard to polio vaccination and asked the commissioners to strictly deal with refusal of parents against the vaccine and ensure that all children were reached during the coming campaign. The commissioner said that task force at the divisional level that included commissioners, deputy commissioners, assistant commissioners, district health officers and elected union council members, would lead vaccination campaigns.
The province has recorded eight cases of the countrywide 17 in 2016 so far. It reported last case in September from Kohistan, but relevant authorities informed the meeting that due to better vaccination children would stay safe from polio in future.
The meeting also expressed concerns over testing positive of environmental water sample for polio during two consecutive months and said that in November it could turned out to be negative owing to quality immunisation.
Sindh has recorded six polio cases, Fata have two and Balochistan has recorded one polio case.
The province in last push against polio is employing administrative powers to address the refusal cases. For the past few months, refusal cases have come down owing to registration of FIRs against parents.
Published in Dawn, November 18th, 2016