LAHORE: Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) coordinator and Punjab polio programme head Khizer Afzaal has said the health teams have been missing children in the vaccination campaigns due to poor planning and low-quality micro-plans resulting in consistent positive environmental samples in Lahore and Rawalpindi districts.

Presiding over a meeting held to review the polio campaigns launched in 15 districts of Punjab here on Friday, he expressed his utter displeasure and concern over the practice of missing children during the campaigns.

The districts where polio drives are launched include Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Attock, Chakwal, Multan, Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar, Muzaffargarh, Dera Ghazi Khan, Rajanpur, Rahim Yar Khan, Okara, Sheikhupura and Gujranwala.

Over 13.8 million children were vaccinated in the campaign with the target of an aggregate coverage of 100 per cent.

Addressing the participants, Mr Afzaal expressed concern at positive environmental samples, stressing the need for a special emphasis on Lahore, Rawalpindi and Chakwal.

“The polio case in Islamabad should sound an alarm for Rawalpindi as it is adjacent to the federal capital. Lahore is also positive consistently, while Chakwal has already reported a polio case in August,” EOC coordinator said.

He directed the District Health Management Teams (DHMTs) to redraw micro-plans, with officials focusing on the desk and field validation of the same in their respective jurisdiction.

Though he cautiously welcomed improvement in pass percentage of recent post-campaign monitoring results, the EOC head asked the DHMTs to back their claims of missed children coverage with authentic data.

“Please convince me which strategy you adopted and how you managed to reduce number of missed children during this campaign,” he asked the CEOs of the 15 districts participating in the meeting via video link.

Mr Afzaal stressed on improving the quality of micro-plans, saying missed children phenomenon was linked to poor quality of these plans. He cautioned the DHMTs that there will be no compromise on the quality of micro-plans in future, calling upon the teams to improve coordination with partner staff in the districts.

He said a lack of supervision and validation of micro-plans by the tehsil and union council officers was resulting in positive environmental samples, and directed the deputy district health officers to take personal interest in polio campaigns.

He warned that union council level officers will be removed from service if micro-planning was found sub-optimal.

He instructed the district officials to update record of missed children urgently.

Mr Afzaal called upon the DHMTs to dig deep in the data of union councils having low coverage and triangulate the coverage of statistics with vaccine consumption rates.

The EOC coordinator also inquired districts about status of floodwater and plans to vaccinate children in the affected areas.

He was informed that only three union councils of DG Khan were affected by flood, and the district teams were planning coverage of children in these UCs on September 25, anticipating the water will recede in these areas very soon.

He was also briefed on status of post-campaign monitoring results.

He called a virtual meeting of the health CEOs of Punjab districts on Monday to apprise them of the challenges in polio eradication and check their level of preparedness.

Published in Dawn, September 21st, 2024