May 30, 2008	Friday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 24, 1429

NAWABSHAH, May 29: The district nazim’s programme for vaccination of primary school children against hepatitis-B appears headed for failure after 40,000 of 143,000 absentee students miss vaccination during the first and second rounds of vaccination.According to figures obtained from the office of EDO of health, eight teams with 40 supervisors had been formed to vaccinate children throughout the district under the district nazim’s initiative for the control of hepatitis-B.

The teams were provided vaccine under the National Programme for Control and Prevention of Hepatitis and the SDSSP had sponsored Rs2.5 million for the exercise.

The children were to be administered the second dose exactly after a month of the first dose and the third dose after six months of the first as per procedure.

The campaign was launched in haste on April 15 without evolving proper coordination between the health and education departments and making proper homework, said a source on condition of anonymity.

The departments also failed to take into account the fact that the children would go on summer vacations after final examinations, rendering their drive futile, he said.

The teams administered the first dose to about 122,500 children in 2,300 schools across the district, which also included about 25,000 non-enrolled children.

The number of enrolled absentee children in the first dose was 21,000 who missed vaccination. The teams vaccinated 82,500 students of 1,366 primary schools in the second round with 19,321 students absent who had received the first dose during the first round. The teams also vaccinated the first dose to about 5,000 students during the second round.

The vaccinators who took part in the exercise told on request of anonymity that the programme should have started in September after summer vacations. It was sad to see that a fairly large number of children had missed the vaccination and it was almost impossible to vaccinate them during vacations.

They said that it was the responsibility of education department to inform the health department that the timings of the campaign clashed with vacations schedule.

Dr Asadullah Dahiri, in-charge of the programme, said that they launched the campaign because they had vaccine available and the health department in coordination with education department had requested the head masters of the schools to make the absent children available by May 31. He hoped the programme would be successful.

The EDOs of health and education and caretaker district nazim were not available for comments.