PESHAWAR: The government’s full focus on polio eradication campaign has badly affected immunisation for other vaccine-preventable childhood diseases in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to officials.

“The government has not only failed miserably to eradicate polio but has also exposed children to other fatal diseases, like measles,” they said, adding that the main focus of the health department remained on polio vaccination which subsequently affected the routine immunisation for nine childhood diseases.

The health department had more than 1000 centres of Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) throughout the province to vaccinate children but officials said the province had recorded 6,000 cases of measles including 115 deaths from January and May 2014.

Officials also conceded that more attention on polio-related activities deprived children of other routine immunisation because the vaccinators remained preoccupied with polio immunisation for most part of every month.

Officials say children are also exposed to other childhood diseases

“For polio immunisation the vaccinators visit door-to-door and other public places due to which they don’t give enough time to the EPI centres where women bring their children for routine immunisation,” officials said.

They said that the polio-centric approach of health not only affected the routine immunisation but people were also refusing it like polio. The situation could turn worst as the province had already seen many outbreaks of measles during the past few years, they said.

Officials said that health department had several times requested the government to integrate polio immunisation with routine immunisation to put brakes on other diseases but all such requests fell on deaf ears in the wake of international pressure to eradicate polio.

For routine immunisation, the children are brought to EPI centres where they receive vaccination whereas they get oral polio vaccine at their doorsteps which create doubts in their minds as to why the vaccinators visit their houses for polio vaccination.

“When mothers visit the EPI centres to immunise their children against hepatitis, measles, diphtheria, whooping cough etc and find that health workers are in the field in connection with anti-polio campaign, they leave the centre without administering vaccine to their children,” officials said.

They said that they had to run 12-day aggressive campaign against measles to stop its outbreak in May. About 40 cases of measles were reported during the last two months, however, health department was able to achieve 79 per cent vaccination coverage for measles against its target of 90 per cent. “For other diseases, the coverage stands at 82 per cent,” they added.

Officials said that refusal against measles vaccination was emerging as a new problem due to anti-polio campaigns because some people took all vaccines for OPV. The health department wanted to stop outreach campaigns against polio and make sure that all vaccination was done at the EPI centres, they added.

They said that it would also do away with refusals against OPV and would strengthen routine immunisation.

According to officials, many parents argue with the vaccinators as to why they are giving anti-polio vaccines to children too frequently and at their doorsteps, ignoring other childhood diseases. But routine vaccination couldn’t be conducted in the field, they said.

Officials said that they had asked the vaccinators to stay at the EPI centres at least for two days in a week to ensure that the children were immunised.

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2014