KARACHI:The Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for Polio in Sindh has completed ‘December polio campaign’ in the province with an overall coverage of 101 per cent of the target while vaccination coverage in Karachi was remained 95.2 per cent. The extra percent can be owed to the influx of guest children in the province through seasonal migration during the month of December. The total target of under 5 children was 9 million children out of which approximately 2.3 million were residing in Karachi.
If we look at coverage per division it is as follows: Karachi target: 22, 93,687 coverage: 95.2 per cent, Hyderabad division target: 21,60,552 coverage: 102.1 percent Larkana Division target: 1514246 with coverage 103.7 per cent, Shaheed Benazirabad Division target: 1093,139 coverage: 101.8 percent, Sukkur Division target: 1229424 coverage: 103.9 percent and Mirpurkhas Division 7,85,475 with coverage: 103 percent.
Spokesperson EOC Sindh said that with a satisfactory campaign across the country and regular polio drives planned till June, this is a good start to reverse the trend of polio cases in the province.
He said that coverages which are above 100 percent are because a number of people have entered the province as per their seasonal migration trends and have subsequently been vaccinated.
It must be noted though that despite the high coverages and satisfactory percentages, there are pockets of missed children and refusals. Out of the total 9 million children under 5 that were targeted, the province has around 3.3 percent missed children equally divided in refusals and not available children who were are travelling as per their seasonal trends for holidays to their home towns.
Teams are constantly engaging communities in order to further reduce refusals. However for polio eradication one must consistently vaccinate 95 percent of the target; hence the December campaign is a solid foundation to build on over the next 6 months.
The EOC once again appealed to the public to cooperate with polio teams and appealed to the media to spread the message that polio vaccination is encouraged by all religious scholars, medical associations such as the Pakistan Paediatric and that the whole world, including more than 50 Islamic countries have eradicated polio through using the very same oral polio Vaccine.