Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Thursday formally launched an injectable polio vaccine, an important step to accelerate its polio eradication campaign as the authorities vowed to wipe out the disease by 2016.

More than four million children will benefit from the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV), which will be incorporated into the country’s routine immunisation schedule and given to children alongside other jabs.

Addressing the launch of the injectable polio vaccine, National Health Services Minister Saira Tarar said on Thursday that newly introduced vaccine would augment efforts to curb poliovirus and strengthen routine immunisation.

Saira added, “The National Emergency Action Plan 2015-16 gives us guiding principles to achieve the objectives of maintaining and increasing immunity against polio throughout Pakistan by implementing high quality campaigns, to stop virus transmission in all reservoirs and to prevent establishment of poliovirus circulation in rest of the country. There is also a need to focus on routine immunisation to sustain gains made so far.”

EPI National Programme Manager Dr Saqlain Gilani said that polio endgame strategy aims at introducing one dose of IPV in routine immunisation to take polio to the finish point.

Pakistan has made substantial progress in reducing the crippling childhood disease, with only 29 cases reported so far this year, compared with 115 in the same period in 2014. Efforts to eradicate polio in Pakistan have been hit by longstanding rumours that the traditional oral polio vaccine (OPV) contained harmful substances and was part of a plot to sterilise Muslims.