ISLAMABAD: ‘Sehat Ka Ittehad’ — the joint campaign being run by the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Pakistan Army and Fata Secretariat — saved the day for Pakistan at the 12th meeting of the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB), which was held in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.

For the first time in recent years, the IMB appreciated Pakistan’s efforts as the number of reported cases in the current year had dropped to 22 from the 58 that were reported during the same period last year.

The IMB of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative works on behalf of international donor agencies and it issues performance reports after every six months.

Also read: Bill Gates praises KP’s anti-polio campaign

In November 2012, the IMB had recommended that travel restrictions be imposed on Pakistan on May 2014.

According to sources present at the meeting, which was chaired by IMB Chairman Sir Liam Donaldson, National Health Services (NHS) Minister Saira Afzal Tarar made the opening remarks on behalf of Pakistan. The Pakistan status report was read out by Ayesha Raza Farooq, the prime minister’s focal person for polio.

The board was also informed that traces of the poliovirus were also disappearing from environmental samples. The epicentre — North Waziristan — and the amplifier — Karachi — of the 2013-14 outbreaks have also not reported polio cases for more than six months.

Sehat Ka Ittehad credited with decline in number of reported cases

The IMB appreciated the situation in the country following the rollout of the ‘Sehat Ka Ittehad’ programme, which covers 17 districts (12 in KP and 5 in Fata), which was where 90 per cent of all cases were reported last year.

Delegations from Afghanistan and Nigeria also gave briefings about the situation in their countries and an internal IMB meeting — to be held on Thursday — is expected to chalk out a future plan of action for all three countries.

However, according to an official statement issued by the Ministry of National Health Services, all agencies of Fata are now accessible to health workers and polio vaccination is in full swing. The number of inaccessible children has dropped significantly, from 250,000 to 48,000, the statement claimed.

“We are hoping that Jamrud Tehsil in the Khyber Agency shall soon be accessible as the military operation ... flushes out the last remnants of the militants,” the NHS minister was quoted as saying.

Senator Ayesha Raza Farooq highlighted the security of polio teams and told the IMB that protection for vaccinators and better planning of polio campaigns through greater cooperation between the Interior Ministry, EOCs and law enforcement agencies had helped ensure the safe completion of campaigns across Pakistan.

Senator Farooq said that due to effective interventions to engage refusal families, there had been a sharp decrease in refusals from 0.30 percent to 0.11 percent — the lowest ever in programme’s history.

The pro-active role of the National Islamic Advisory Group and assigning of religious support persons to high risk union councils had resulted in a major drop in refusals based on religious reasons and according to the data, it was now no longer the major cause of refusals to vaccination.

EOC National Coordinator Rana Safdar told Dawn that the board also raised concerns over the poor quality of campaigns in Afghanistan, especially the areas bordering Balochistan and KP.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2015

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