ISLAMABAD: Despite the concerns expressed by the international community over the efficacy of Pakistan’s routine immunisation programme, the Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) continues to insist that all is well and that global partners were, in fact, full of praise for the country’s commitment to eradicating disease.

The Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, in June 2017, had expressed concern over the quality of routine immunisation and recommended that a special task force be assembled to bring about a major transformation in performance within the next six months.

The IMB works on behalf of international donor agencies and issues reports regarding the performance of various countries every six months and observed that all available data sources showed that levels of routine immunisation in polio-vulnerable areas of Pakistan were very poor, despite substantial investments by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (Gavi).

Meeting notes gaps in routine vaccination; NHS ministry claims ‘all is well’

It noted that polio could have been eradicated from Pakistan a long time ago if the routine immunisation programme was even performing at 50pc efficiency.

However, in a recent meeting with the NHS ministry, international donors expressed concerns over Pakistan’s performance. A participant of this meeting, held in-camera, told Dawn that the poor standard of immunisation was the major reason for the spread of disease in the country.

“Around 12,000 measles cases have been reported this year, as well as three cases of polio. It was found that one child in Lodhran was given only two (out of a minimum of five doses) of the polio vaccine during routine immunisation, while two children from Diamer and Killa Abdullah were not even given a single dose,” he said.

“There is a proper mechanism to monitor polio campaigns; even third-party assessment is carried out. But there is no proper system of assessment for routine immunisation campaigns and administrative reports are considered sufficient,” the source said.

The official claimed that routine immunisation was better in Punjab and Azad Jammu and Kashmir, since there was more awareness among the people of these areas. However, he conceded that the programme was struggling in other provinces.

“The high level foreign mission has been visiting Pakistan because IMB has also recommended that donors bring improvements in the programme,” he said.

However, according to the official statement issued by ministry, the high-level international mission that is monitoring the country’s progress in strengthening mother and child immunisation had appreciated the strong commitment and leadership displayed by the federal and provincial governments.

The mission included top health experts from World Bank, Gavi, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, World Health Organization, Unicef and Usaid among others.

According to the statement, NHS Minister Saira Afzal Tarar said the expanded programme on immunisation (EPI) had been making rigorous efforts to capitalise on multiple investments made to improving routine immunization in the country over the past few years.

“The mission recommended the revision of EPI Policy for incorporating the emerging programme needs. The mission emphasized upon the need to rationalise the various systems for monitoring and data flow and integrating various technologies for the optimum benefits for the programme,” the statement read.

Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2017