ISLAMABAD: As many as 50 per cent surveys have found the polio campaign in Peshawar unsuccessful, sources said on Wednesday.

Moreover, 34 per cent children in Karachi could not be vaccinated with inactivated polio vaccine (IPV).

This was disclosed during a briefing given to the Minister of National Health Services (NHS) Saira Afzal Tarar during her visit to the Centre on Wednesday.

According to sources, during briefing, given by head of the EOC Rana Safdar, it was informed that in Peshawar polio campaign held in December 2014.

After the campaign it was announced that 88 per cent children were vaccinated.

However during Lot Quality Assessments Survey (LQAS) it was found that out of 12 LQAS only one lot was declared pass.

LQAS is conducted after the polio campaign to verify the claim of the polio teams. As many as 60 children were been selected in each lot.

Other annoying news was that people in Karachi were not ready to vaccinate their children through IPV.

Polio campaign, to give IPV to 87,200 children of nine union councils (UCs) of Karachi, was conducted but only 36,445 children could be vaccinated.

At the moment two types of vaccines i.e. oral polio vaccine (OPV) and IPV are available in the country.

OPV is live but weak polio virus and it has to be given time to time. In IPV inactivated (killed) virus is used and it is given through injection. IPV is very expensive as compared to OPV but it is more effective.

The minister was told that people in Karachi were not willing to be vaccinated IPV.

However, positive results have been observed in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa regarding IPV, sources said.

It was told that in Qila Abdullah’s 15 UCs IPV campaign was held. Target was 30,000 but 31,575 children were vaccinated. In FR Bannu 10 UCs were selected and target was to vaccinate 17,397 children. As many as 17,034 children were vaccinated in FR Bannu.

According to official statement it was informed that five UCs in Karachi had to cancel the last polio campaign over security deployment issues.

With regard to the Karachi situation it was agreed to discuss the proposal of holding special campaigns on weekly basis with strict security cordon and concentration of both polio teams and security personnel.

To this end Secretary NHS Ayub Sheikh was advised to hold urgent meeting with Capital City Police Officer Karachi to finalise arrangements for the poio campaign.

It was also decided to constitute a special committee for Karachi on polio eradication.

The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Focal Person on Polio Eradication Ayesha Raza Farooq.

Head of the EOC Rana Safdar while talking to Dawn said that in Balochistan and FR Bannu people willingly vaccinated their children with IPV but because of the negative response of IPV in Karachi campaign is still underway.

“It has been decided to hold vigorous polio campaigns all over the country to eradicate the polio virus,” he said.

Published in Dawn January 15th , 2015

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