ISLAMABAD: As Pakistan has pledged at a number of international forums that the poliovirus would be eradicated by the end of 2016, it has been decided that 95pc coverage should be achieved in the upcoming campaign starting from September 26 to gain a momentum for the next three drives to be held later in the year.

To reduce the chances of children missing out during the campaigns, special focus will be given on the borders of districts and temporary settlements across the country.

These decisions were taken at a meeting attended by representatives of the National Emergency Operation Centre (NEOC) on polio, the World Health Organisation, United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Pakistan has pledged to eradicate poliovirus by end of 2016

It may be noted that Pakistan has shown quite an impressive progress in the reduction of polio cases since 2014 when the number remained 306 in the country.

In the year 2015, there were 54 cases but this year only 13 cases have been reported.

International health organisations are quite hopeful that with a little more effort Pakistan can eradicate the poliovirus by the end of the year.

The head of the NEOC, Dr Rana Safdar, told Dawn that during the meeting it was observed that out of the last four cases three were reported from Bannu and one from D.I. Khan. Moreover, two cases, which were reported from South Waziristan, had actually originated in Afghanistan.

“Most of the polio cases were reported in those people who frequently travelled from Fata, KP and Balochistan to the plain areas of the country for the sale of their animals, cotton plucking and other work and then return,” he said.

The participants of the meeting, including district representatives, were of the view that children can be missed on the borders between districts and provinces because sometimes the local administrations ignored the border areas, he said.

Moreover, some localities in a district can be approached from another district such as areas in D.I. Khan which have better access from Fata and localities in the Sherani district (Balochistan) can be reached from Fata.

“There are so many temporary settlements in different parts of the country, so it was decided that every time the whole area of each district would be checked because a settlement can be set up any time,” he said.

About the upcoming nationwide polio campaign, Dr Safdar said: “If we gained a momentum by vaccinating over 95pc children, we will obviously eradicate the poliovirus by the end of the year.”

During the campaign, around 37 million children will be vaccinated for which we are making arrangements to send 41 million doses of polio vaccine to all parts of the country. Over 100,000 teams will be constituted to hold a door-to-door campaign.

Besides, 16,000 community volunteers will also be engaged to ensure that no child is missed out during the campaign,” he said.

Published in Dawn September 21st, 2016