PESHAWAR, June 16: The United Nations Children Fund (Unicef) has decided to launch a special awareness campaign entitled “child health week” in areas that are inaccessible to vaccinators and lady health workers (LHWs). Children aged between six and 59 months would be targeted by the campaign, which calls for provision of vitamin A supplements twice a year. This was decided at the concluding session of a two-day consultation on vitamin A supplements held at a local hotel.

Apart from Unicef project officers Dr Taimur Khan and Dr Abdul Jamil, the consultation was attended by Dr Jalilur Rehman and NWFP’s executive district health officers.

The speakers said that Pakistan had achieved tremendous success in vitamin A supplementation as compared to other South Asian states but the real challenge before local health experts and health departments was how to sustain the high coverage of vitamin A supplementation after the national immunisation days (NIDs).

For this purpose, vitamin A supplementation will be piloted in targeted districts and then replicated in the remaining districts. During the course of the pilot project, all children 6-59 months would be provided with vitamin A supplementation twice a year in the months of August and February.

Moreover, parents will be encouraged to bring their children to immunisation points or health centres once every six months, the speakers said. They pointed out that areas outside the purview of LHWs would be reached by EPI vaccinators.