SWABI: Citing different reasons, teachers of the government schools and lady health workers (LHWs) warned here on Thursday that they would not take part in the coming anti-polio vaccination campaigns being conducted under the provincial government’s Sehat Ka Insaf programme.

The first anti-polio campaign in Swabi district is scheduled to be held on April 6, followed by another campaign on April 13 and the last one in the series on April 20.

The teachers gathered in government middle school, Swabi, and marched from there to the district headquarters. They were led by All Teachers Association (ATA) district president Abdul Latif and vice-president Ijaz Khan. They met with the assistant commissioner and apprised him of their point of view.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Latif said that they had been performing their duties in schools and the health department staff should run the anti-polio campaign.

“At present, a number of teachers have been performing duty in the ongoing examinations of ninth and tenth classes being conducted under the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Mardan,” he said. “We have also performed our duty in the general and local government elections. We also worked in census. We should be given enough time to focus on our job,” said the ATA president.

It has been learnt that about 1,000 teachers from different schools are expected to perform duty in the anti-polio campaign. “We have finalised and sent the names of teachers to each union council. After the teachers’ warning to stay away from the campaign we have planned to arrange volunteers from Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf at the union council level,” said a health officer on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, over 700 lady health workers have also refused to perform duty with male officials and volunteers. “We have been striving to convince them and we hope this issue would be resolved by the health officials,” said Dr Yaqub, the district head of Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI).

In a related development, provision of security to vaccinators was discussed at a meeting held at the office of district police officer here on Thursday.

The meeting was attended DIG Mardan Said Wazir, DPO Sajjad Khan, Dr Yaqub, Dr Liaquat, the district support manager of People's Primary Healthcare Initiative (PPHI), PTI district president Anwar Haq Dad, DSPs of four tehsils and SHOs and president of district jirga Sabz Ali. The participants vowed to play their due role in the anti-polio campaign.

Mr Wazir said that all the police staff would remain on duty on the campaign days in Swabi, Mardan and Charsadda. He said that some police staff would be also deployed from Nowshera district.

DPO Sajjad said that there would be ban on motorcycle riding on the campaign days. “We have made complete security arrangements for the anti-polio campaign in the district,” he said.