KARACHI:Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for Polio in Sindh has launched the last polio campaign of 2018 in all districts of Sindh including Karachi wherein Minister for Health Sindh, Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho has inaugurated anti-polio campaign at Hilal-e-Ahmer Hospital.
A total target population for this campaign is approximately 8.9 million children under 5 years of age out of which approximately 2.3 million children reside in the metropolis of Karachi. The drive would be conducted from Dec 10 to Dec16 in Karachi and Dec 10 to Dec 13th in the rest of Sindh districts, respectively.
More than 50,000 front line workers are participating in this campaign, this includes team members and area in charges. In Karachi alone there are more than 9,000 community health workers supported by 2,300 plus area in-charges who will go door to door to give polio drops to children. Around 5,000 law enforcement agency officials have been deputed for security of teams.
This is an extremely important campaign. If figures remain the same, Sindh will report its lowest polio case count in history as the province has reported just 1 polio case in 2018 which is from Gadap in Karachi. This is in compared to 2 in 2017, 8 in 2016, 12 in 2015 and 30 in 2014.
Coordinator EOC Sindh Umer Farooq Bullo said that “The district polio control rooms, health officials of the government of Sindh and polio teams have done a fantastic job to bring the case count down but our goal is to reach zero hence we must continue to work hard and focus on the areas where the virus springs up such as UC 4 Gadap. We have established a model EPI center in this area to increase routine immunization and will implement other programs there in order improve health care delivery for its residents.”
There has been a 99% reduction on polio cases across the country since 2014 and the total case count for Pakistan in 2018 is 8, in 2017 it was 8, in 2016 it was 20, in 2015 it was 54 and in 2014 it was 306.
The Pakistan Pediatric Association and medical experts recommend that every child must take two drops of the vaccine every time it is offered. In order to save their children from polio, parents must vaccinate them with two drops of the polio vaccine during every campaign.
Meanwhile, religious scholars from all sects of Islam too have endorsed the polio programme and given fat was asking the masses to vaccinate their children to protect them from life long disability.