PESHAWAR: The World Health Organisation has conceded that government and its partner organisations in polio eradication campaign are responsible for the failure to achieve the target of eliminating the poliovirus.

The world health agency stressed the need for joint efforts to make the country free of the crippling vaccine-preventable childhood ailment.

“As partner of the government in vaccination, we are accountable for polio eradication activities and there is strict accountability framework. There are many examples of termination of services and warning letters given for poor performing staff,” Dr Nima Saeed Abid, the WHO representative in Pakistan, told Dawn.

WHO stresses need for joint efforts

Responding to a report published in this newspaper on March 17 wherein warning had been issued to staffers of WHO and Unicef to improve their performance for the sake of eliminating poliovirus from Peshawar by the government, he said that all were on the same boat and should strive jointly to achieve the target.

“However, shifting blame is a serious sign of frustration that would not help in eradication effort,” he said and agreed that there were managerial and operational problems rather than accessibility that required collaborative efforts to ensure that all target population got vaccinated.

Dr Nima said that all partners had to accept the responsibility of not achieving the target of stopping polio transmission and act together to overcome the remaining challenges rather than pointing fingers.

“I agree that the remaining problems are managerial and operational more than accessibility,” he said.

The district administration in Peshawar has been asking the WHO and Unicef workers to improve their performance with regard to polio eradication. Many letters have been issued to remind them of the slackness on their part. Both the agencies are the main technical partners of the government in polio eradication campaign.

The government wants the workers deployed by the UN to coordinate with it. It has time and again expressed concerns over lack of performance by them. However, WHO chief said that all those carrying out vaccination were equally responsible for failure to do away with poliomyelitis.

“With a large programme like polio eradication, there are definitely management issues and poor performers but the most important is to identify and solve the problems and the same for those, who are not performing. If they are not improving their performance after warning, they should be dismissed and replaced,” he said.

Dr Nima said that there were more than 26,000 workers in polio programme. “We shouldn’t expect all of them to be good or having the potential to improve,” he added.

He said that it was not only the government but all in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative were concerned about not stopping the transmission of polio. “I repeat we are equally accountable,” he said.

Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has been the mainstay of poliovirus and government has focused on efforts to eradicate the virus.

Under a changed strategy, the UN has hired about 3,000 female community health workers and 250 union council polio officers including district health communication officers and communication officers and polio eradication officers but the district administration has been expressing concerns over their performance.

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2019