QUETTA: Balochistan Health Minister Rehmat Saleh Baloch said on Tuesday that the health department was making efforts to ensure the visit of vaccinators to every village of the province so that maximum children could be administrated necessary vaccines.

Speaking at an awareness programme on routine immunisation here, he said in the past “we (the provincial government) did not pay enough attention to basic vaccination that resulted in the death of hundreds of children in Balochistan”.

The programme was organised by United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef).

“Up to 28,000 children die of pneumonia, 20,000 of measles and 250,000 of diarrhoea every year in Pakistan and that is why we have increased the annual budget of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI),” the minister said.

The provincial health department, he said, was paying attention to basic vaccination programme across Balochistan. “We are taking all preventive measures to protect our children from polio, measles, diarrhoea and other fatal diseases.”

The minister said efforts were under way to further improve and expand the immunisation programme. “We want to expand immunisation programme to every village of Balochistan.”

About facilities provided to vaccinators, he said that keeping in mind geographical issues, “we have provided our staff special vehicles and 426 solar and 36 electrical ILR (inverter loading ratio) systems”.

He said that 300 vaccinators had been appointed in the province and another 1,000 would be recruited soon to make the immunisation programme more effective.

Dr Ishaq Panezai, provincial deputy head of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation, and other officials concerned briefed the participants about the immunisation programme.

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2017