PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa health secretary Abid Majeed on Friday said his department had formulated the Northern Corridor Action Plan stipulating a series of measures to ward off the threat posed to the province by the presence of polio virus in Nangarhar province of Afghanistan.

“With a view to strengthen the routine immunisation in the province, the number of vaccination workers has been increased, which will help address lacunas in the service delivery system,” he told chairman of the Technical Advisory Group for Polio Dr Jean Marc Olive during a meeting here.

Senior officials of the health department briefed Mr Olive about the anti-polio campaign in the province, said a statement issued here.

Chief secretary Azam Khan told the visitor that KP was the only province, which had introduced a law for making immunisation mandatory indicating the importance it accorded to vaccination.

He said efforts for polio eradication would continue and that the upcoming general elections won’t have any adverse impact on such efforts made by the KP Emergency Operations Centre with the support of the health department.

Health secy says series of steps planned to ward off danger

Peshawar commissioner Dr Fakhr-i-Alam told participants that the provincial capital was declared a ‘conveyer belt’ two years ago by the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) but due to the efforts of the anti-polio teams and district administration, no polio case had been reported there during the last two years.

Also in the day, Dr Olive met coordinator of the Fata Emergency Operations Centre Zubair Khan here and appreciated the progress towards polio eradication in tribal areas.

He said the authorities needed to remain vigilant as virus was still circulating in areas around tribal region.

“We are getting close to the ultimate goal of polio eradication and tribal areas have made tremendous progress during the last couple of years. But there is a need for us to be vigilant as the polio virus is still circulating in areas around Fata,” he said.

Mr Olive stressed the need for consistent efforts to focus on and sustain the quality of anti-polio campaigns in the region adjacent to Afghanistan.

Mr Zubair told the visitor that proactive engagement and coordination with political administration and security agencies had made it possible to reach out and vaccinate children in Fata.

He said Fata PEI team had enhanced monitoring in the campaigns to maintain quality of anti-polio campaign and that efforts were being made to improve coverage of routine immunisation as well.

“The Fata Secretariat is planning to pilot a project in Bajaur Agency to improve the routine immunisation’s coverage. Once the pilot project succeeds, it will be replicated all over Fata.

It could help make strides towards bringing sustainability in covering children not only for polio, but also for vaccination of children against other diseases,” he said.

Mr Zubair said the low-performing areas were analyzed and examined with the support of partner organisations and recommendations for improvement were shared with the relevant political agents due to which the number of low-performing areas was expected to decline in the recent vaccination campaign.

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2018