A three-day special polio drive that will target over 243,000 children is starting in 11 ‘super high-risk’ areas of the city from today.
A committee, comprising commissioner Shoaib Siddiqui, health secretary Iqbal Durrani and AIG Ghulam Qadir Thebo, will be looking after all issues related to the campaign. This three-member team has been constituted by chief minister Qaim Ali Shah and it is the first time that officials, who are not part of the health department, will not only monitor the drive but have also helped chalk out the plan.
A total of 692 teams have been constituted for this special drive and they will be supervised by 159 area in-charge. Medical officers of 24 union councils (UCs) have also been assigned the task to make sure all 243,307 children are given the polio drops. Karachi’s senior medical director Dr Zafar Ejaz and SSP Ejaz Hashmi will lead the health workers and the law enforcing personnel, respectively.
The drive will start at 9am and will last till 4pm. The special committee will be taking updates every day throughout the drive. The UCs that this special drive will target include Gujjar, Songal, Mangho Pir, Ittehad Town, Chishti Nagar, Islamia Colony, Liaquatabad, Rahri, Muzaffarabad, Muslimabad and Chakra Goth.
A contingent of Rangers will also be deployed in more sensitive areas while the police will be accompanying the health workers.
Numbers’ game
Earlier on Wednesday, the state minister for National Health Services, Regulation and Coordination, Saira Afzal Tarar, had claimed that routine coverage of the polio drive in Sindh was merely 29 per cent. However, Sindh Health Minister Jam Mehtab Hussain Dahar rejected her claims. The coverage in Sindh, including Karachi, has never been below 95 per cent, he insisted.
“It is a national issue not limited to Sindh only,” said Dahar, in a statement issued on Friday. “The Sindh government is fully committed in making Sindh polio free.”
According to Dahar, the Sindh Polio Emergency Operational cell has identified 11 super high-risk UCs with the presence of the virus.
An official of the health department said that the federal minister’s claims are baseless. The coverage across Sindh is about 60 per cent, he said. He explained that the coverage statistics were more than 95 per cent at a time when vaccinators were not involved in polio drives. The vaccinators, looking after routine immunisation of children for various diseases, were keeping records that showed which child had been immunised against which disease. How workers designated for routine immunisation can perform well when they are engaged in polio drives, he asked.
82,769 children to be vaccinated in Thatta
A three-day polio eradication drive will commence on November 24 in Thatta district. During the campaign, 82,769 children are targeted for inoculation against the virus. The drive will be carried out by 166 mobile vaccination teams, 17 fixed centres and 15 mobile centres.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 15th, 2014.