PESHAWAR: A senior government doctor from Peshawar has complained against untrained health workers, saying they don’t follow guidelines for vaccination of children against polio at permanent transit points of the provincial capital.

He called for recruitment of vaccinators after proper evaluation.

Dr Siraj Ahmad, the in charge medical officer of the polio control room at Peshawar’s Town III, made the complaint in a letter written to the provincial director general (health services), the Expanded Programme on Immunisation deputy director, the deputy commissioner of Peshawar, and the relevant WHO and Unicef representatives.

However, the Unicef, which recruits vaccinators for permanent transit points, rejects the complaint.

Govt doctor tasked with anti-polio duty calls for engaging health workers after proper evaluation

A Unicef representative insisted vaccinators had the required qualification for the job and that not only they were instrumental in protecting the population displaced from polio-endemic North Waziristan and Khyber Agency against the crippling disease but they prevented the spread of polio virus in local population as well.

“Since June this year, we have administered oral polio vaccine to more than 1.5 million children in Peshawar and 156,000 children in Bannu at 203 transit points with the help of 900 workers,” he told Dawn.

In the letter, Dr Siraj Ahmad said he had found a student of Government Higher Secondary School No 1, Peshawar Cantonment engaged as a permanent member of anti-polio team at the Khyber Teaching Hospital as well as another female member of the team to be ‘totally illiterate’.

He said the two vaccinators were also found sitting in emergency pediatrics service ward of the hospital instead of transit point.

The medical officer also said members of transit teams didn’t follow standard operating procedure for anti-polio programme and that they’re hired only after proper evaluation.

He suggested that the government play a lead role in recruiting vaccinators for transit points and assigning duty to them.

The Unicef representatives insisted they followed rules for appointment of vaccinators.

“Under rules, vaccinators should be first local residents, second above 18 and third literate,” a Unicef representative.

He said at every transit point, there were two people with one administering oral polio vaccine to children and the other just ticking the children’s age column of the relevant sheets.

WHO and Unicef have been providing technical and mobilisation support to the government in anti-polio efforts with the latter carrying out vaccination in the province.

Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has reported 14 of this year’s 43 polio cases in the province.

Six of them had originated from Khyber Agency, whose polio count for the year is 49.

In the past, relations between Unicef and the government remained strained many times over appointments.

The government alleged the Unicef didn’t take it into confidence over appointments.

The Unicef representatives insisted with the help of transit teams, they’d been successful in protecting local population from the unvaccinated children of Khyber Agency for more than a year.

They said another success of transit points was vaccination of children of North Waziristan Agency before their arrival in Bannu and other districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Until now this year, North Waziristan Agency has reported 69 polio cases, the highest by any districts in the country.

Overall, 209 cases have been reported in the country so far this year.

At transit points, vaccinators supported by social mobilisation staff vaccinate children, whose parents had earlier refused their vaccination.

No case has been seen in children displaced from Waziristan though the region remained out of bounds for vaccinators for two years due to the Taliban’s ban on polio vaccination.

According to the Unicef representatives, transit points have turned out to be a blessing for children displaced from militancy-hit Fata, where they were not accessible by health workers for security reasons.

And once these children go to different districts of the province, they can’t be tracked conveniently. In this light, the main focus is on transit points, which has so far been a success.

The Unicef representatives also said there were points at large government hospitals of Bannu and Peshawar, where both local and displaced children received vaccination against polio.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2014