LAKKI MARWAT: The district administration has decided to seek help of the Pakistan Army, police and local councillors in case of en bloc refusal by parents to get polio vaccine administered to their children during the upcoming campaign starting from Feb 27.

The decision was taken in a meeting of district polio eradication committee held at the district headquarters complex on Wednesday.

The meeting reviewed arrangements for the coming anti-polio campaign with a focus on the coverage of refusal cases.

Deputy commissioner Mohammad Bakhtiar presided over the meeting, which was attended by DHO Dr Abdul Ghaffar Wazir, Dr Tariq Saleem, district khateeb Maulana Abdul Wahab, officials of partner organisations and other relevant people.

An official informed the meeting that residents in rural areas often linked problems such excessive power outages with anti-polio campaign and refused to vaccinate their children until the problems faced by them were resolved.

He said that en bloc refusal by parents could badly impact the efforts of the health department to eliminate the crippling disease.

Dr Wazir said at the meeting that over 700 teams would launch the drive to ensure vaccination of the targeted population.

He said that the health department had also formed 11 roaming teams to visit busy public places to administer polio vaccine to children.

He said that five permanent transit teams had been deployed at border points/places to immunise children entering the district along with parents.

The deputy commissioner told the meeting that army, police and Levies force would be utilised to tackle the issue of en bloc refusal cases. He made it clear that refusal by parents to get their children vaccinated would not be tolerated.

He also said that the administration would send cases of the councillors to the Local Government Commission for disqualification in case they incited parents to refuse vaccination.

“It is the prime duty of local bodies’ members to support the polio teams to ensure administration of polio drops to the children,” he said, calling upon the polio workers to report problems faced by them during field duty to the district control room.

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2017