Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The prime minister’s focal person for polio eradication, Senator Ayesha Raza Farooq, on Friday said that the government was committed to address the remaining challenges to end the crippling polio transmission in Pakistan.

She was addressing a meeting held here to review anti-polio campaigns and resource allocations by the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) and the Directorate of Health Services (DHS) in order to identify gaps and addressing core issues in the polio eradication drive in the federal capital.

She expressed satisfaction that Pakistan had been able to reduce the polio cases overall but expressed dismay over the campaign quality and high proportion of missed children in the capital.

She stressed the need for paying more attention on management, supervision and accountability to tackle the remaining gaps in anti-polio drives, particularly in the federal capital.

“We must commit ourselves to nothing less than leaving no child unvaccinated and vulnerable to this crippling virus,” Ayesha said.

She urged on reaching the goal of interrupting polio transmission with further intensified efforts particularly in the federal capital.

She called for effective steps for ensuring quality polio eradication campaigns by removing all bottlenecks.

She was optimistic that the country would shortly overcome the challenges. However, she urged to focus on the training of female workers to ensure the success of the drives.

Ayesha said that there should be a simple and clear roadmap of vaccination teams besides work-load strategies to reach missed children. “Challenges which impact the drive should be addressed to have better results of anti-polio drives,” she remarked.

She urged the local staff to meet the targets in the federal capital and reach every household for the vaccination of every child.

She also urged to focus on improving the capacity of the workforce and the surveillance system to meet the needs of the polio eradication programme.

She said it was due to the strong political will and commitment, shown by the country’s leadership, which had trickled down to all levels of responsibility and brought about a change.

She said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was committed on the complete eradication of polio virus from the country and he was personally overseeing the anti-polio drives.

She thanked the participants for their presence and expressed the hope that they would focus on follow-ups to help overcoming deficiencies.

She added challenges raised at the meeting would continue to provide supervision in this regard.

Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation Mayor Sheikh Ansar Aziz said that a multi-task campaign would be launched in rural and urban areas of the federal capital from September 26 to December 30 for vaccination of children under five years of age.

He said that the DHS had fixed the target of 140,835 children to be vaccinated during the drive for which 600 teams had been formed besides 107 sector supervisors and 21 zonal supervisors to monitor the anti-polio drive.

He assured that every possible step would be taken to eradicate the virus. He also assured that all resources would be utilised in this regard.

He instructed all officials concerned for taking steps for achieving the set targets in this regard.

DHS Director General, Dr Hassan Orooj, appreciated the efforts of Senator Ayesha Raza in polio eradication and assured full support of the DHS staff in this regard.

He apprised the participants about the performance of the DHS with regard to polio eradication efforts in the federal capital.

He said that by learning lessons from the past, the DHS staff would try its level best for the success of further polio eradication drives.

Islamabad’s Deputy Commissioner, Mushtaq Ahmad, said that the local administration would ensure coordination among stakeholders for the success of anti-polio drives and for achieving the targets.