KARACHI, Sept 15: The WHO Regional Director for Eastern- Mediterranean Region, Dr. Hussein A. Gezairy, reminding that Pakistan still holds a registered number of 58 cases of polio, with 26 of them in Sindh only, called for a strong political will to ensure across-the-board immunization of all kids below five years age against the virus.

Talking to newsmen here on Monday, he said masses need to realize that there are absolutely no side-effects, nor any severe repercussions of Oral Polio Vaccine and that the same variety is administered to all children around the globe.

“Pakistan, along with India and Nigeria, ought to attain “zero prevalence” by the year 2003, ultimately helping all children to be protected against the crippling disease,” he said.

According to him, it was, therefore, necessary that not only no child (up to five years of age) skips vaccination during special and repeated campaigns, but routine immunization programme is also efficiently strengthened.

It was observed that regular and across-the-board immunization is important to meet the challenge as children vaccinated hold strong immunity against the virus and could brave through any importation of the same from any part of the country or the world.

“Need is to have meticulous, well-planned, door-to-door campaign, along with provision to strengthen routine immunization programme,” Dr. Gezairy stressed.

The WHO regional director was highly appreciative of the commitment reflected, right from presidential and prime ministerial level to Nazims’ level to attain the targeted goal of polio-eradication.

According to him, it was due to the very fact that areas which only some time back were considered reservoir of polio virus have no case for last three months or more. In this context, example of Hyderabad was particularly mentioned.

With regard to his meeting with President Pervez Musharraf, he said the President has established a cell in the presidency where performance reports from each of the province will be collected on a monthly basis.

Similar measures have also been taken by the Prime Minister and governors of the provinces, particularly in Sindh, so as to make the surveillance operations effective, he said.

With regard to contribution made by WHO to stabilise the efforts under way in Pakistan, Dr. Gezairy mentioned inauguration of a new laboratory of “Genetic Sequencing of Virus” at the National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad.

The facility was said to have helped in procuring fingerprint and identifying the area where the virus actually originated from, thus helping timely and proper measure to eliminate the same.

The WHO’s regional director maintained that coordinated efforts are prerequisite as Pakistan and the other two countries need not only to eradicate polio virus but also to maintain a polio-free environment for three consecutive years till they and the world are ultimately declared “Polio-Free”.

Even if a single confirmed case of polio virus is detected in any part of the country, it would revert the effort to square one as a single virus detection reflects 100 cases of infection, he elaborated, stressing the need for protecting each and every child against the virus.

Acknowledging that Pakistan with a considerably high size of population, has a difficult task before it, he urged media to play its role in dispelling rampant misconceptions about the vaccines and repeated immunization.

He also mentioned the efforts made to seek maximum involvement of female workers in the campaign, pointing out that 73 per cent of the vaccinators comprise women and that this has led to a marked improvement in the coverage rate. The lady vaccinators are not only more acceptable to mothers, but are also capable of convincing the latter, he added.

Dr. Gezairy mentioned that WHO has also constituted 34 district support teams (DSTs), 58 district monitoring teams (DMTs) besides appointing 11 consultants and 10 surveillance officers to make the exercise meaningful till Pakistan attains zero surveillance.

On the occasion, Dr. Gezairy referred to the measures adopted in Pakistan to vaccinate all new born against Hepatitis- B Virus and expressed hope that the initiative taken with the support of Japanese government and GAVI would help Pakistan to largely protect its people against the virus in the next 12 to 15 years.—APP