DERA ISMAIL KHAN: Speakers at a workshop held here the other day urged journalists to highlight importance of vaccination and remove misconception about polio vaccine to save children from the crippling disease.

The daylong workshop was organised by Emergency Operations Center Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The event was attended by EOC technical focal person Dr Imtiaz Ali Shah, National Professional Officer of WHO Dr Sarfaraz Khan Afridi, Kohat ADC Ahmad Basheer, Kohat DHO Syed Samin Shah and journalists from Tank, DI Khan and South Waziristan.

The speakers said that fair media reports on health issues including polio eradication initiative would educate public about significance of vaccination that would help the government to achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Dr Imtiaz said that media should educate people about essential immunisation services of the government to protect children from vaccine preventable diseases and bring down morbidity and mortality rate.

He said that southern districts of the province were hit hard by polio with frequent outbreaks of the disease that paralysed 17 children in 2019 and 2020 so far, making the rest of the children vulnerable to the crippling virus.

He said that it was high time to understand that vaccination of every child under five in every campaign was the only solution to the problem.

Parents should help the teams by allowing vaccination of their children in every campaign to wipe out the scourge from the region, he added.

“Some communities in the southern belt of the province are resisting polio vaccination due to misleading propaganda and are causing spread of the virus,” said Dr Imtiaz.

Dr Sarfaraz Afridi spoke about the history of the disease, types of polio vaccines and need for repeated doses for eradication of the virus. He appreciated journalists for their responsible reporting about polio.

Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2020