February 12, 2008	Tuesday	Safar 04 ,1429

KARACHI, Feb 11: The Sindh government’s Expanded Progra-mme on Immunisation (EPI) will start providing vaccines against preventable diseases free of cost to private health practitioners in the city.A memorandum of understanding in this regard was signed by the EPI, the Forum of General Medical Practitioners (Karachi chapter), the Pakistan Paediatric Association and the Sindh Private Hospital Association at a ceremony held here on Monday.

The signatories vowed to promote the routine immunisation of children against the seven vaccine-preventable diseases — polio, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, TB, measles and hepatitis B — and also resolved to take measures towards an increased coverage of routine immunisation, besides motivating staff and community on polio eradication initiatives.

According to Dr Salma Kauser Ali, Director of the EPI, Sindh, around 1,000 immunisation centres will be established in Karachi and some other in the polio high-risk districts of the province. The private sector centres will charge a nominal service fee whereas the vaccines will be supplied to them free of cost from Feb 15.

The senior office-bearers of the associations, which signed the MoU, included Dr Mohammad Ali Shah, Prof S. M. Inkisar Ali, Dr Shahab Masroor, Unicef Sindh’s Chief Field Officer Deirdre Kiernan and WHO’s Medical Officer, Sindh, Dr Yahya Mostafa.

They observed that the MoU had brought together the major partners in public health for some common goals. An improved and regular immunisation of children was the only way to eradicate the diseases, they added.

Director-General of the health department Abdul Majeed Chitto and Chairman of the Experts Review Committee on Polio also spoke at the ceremony.

He stressed a collective commitment and greater awareness supported by adequate resources to achieve desired success in routine immunisation, adding that without ensuring these, the last and challenging stage of polio eradication was unlikely to show an early success.

Under the MoU, the Sindh EPI will make arrangements for necessary training to doctors from the associations of general physicians and provide them the vaccines, vaccine cards and registers through town health officers.

The EPI will also organise training programmes for member clinics’ staff through the WHO Officer for Sindh in acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) surveillance reporting system and maintenance of record. The doctors will be provided with display/sign boards of “EPI centre”.

The three associations will provide suitable accommodation for the setting up of the routine immunisation centre and a refrigerator for proper storage of vaccines. They will also engage properly trained staff for the immunisation.

The EPI partners will submit account of the vaccines received and comply with the relevant government rules.