PESHAWAR, April 23: The World Health Organisation is concerned about an increase in the incidence of measles and tetanus among infants in the NWFP.

The WHO has shifted its focus from polio eradication to containing measles and neonatal tetanus and has urged the health department to mobilise its staff to cope with the situation.

The WHO reported about 450 cases of measles in 2005 in major hospitals alone while the number of cases reported by the provincial health department from the entire province was only 225, said an official of the WHO’s Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI).

Similarly, the health department reported 33 cases of neonatal tetanus against 53 reported by the WHO.

He said that the NWFP employed 10,000 Lady Health Workers, mainly in its immunisation department.

He said that they had been urging the provincial chapter of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) to direct its more than 1,000 technicians to file correct reports about the immunisation drive but they were not doing so.

Most of the staff was concentrated in and around urban centres, while the basic health units in rural areas had no technician, he said. He said that the immunisation coverage was not more than 60 per cent, adding that the claims of 80 per cent coverage by the health department were false.

“We need transportation and other facilities in order to reach children in remote areas,” he said.

“We are unable to reach inaccessible areas in the Fata region, which had more than a dozen cases last year,” said an official at the Fata’s directorate of health.

The WHO/EPI was not able to achieve the desired level of success despite having a highly-paid staff of 56 members.

Officials said a total of Rs53 million were being spent on every round, of which 80 per cent went in payment to the health teams and their supervisors, 18 per cent of the amount was spent on transportation and fuel while two per cent was miscellaneous expenditure.

They said that eight foreign and 15 local surveillance officers of the PEI were now actively engaged in the drive against measles, neonatal tetanus and polio.