PESHAWAR: The World Health Organisation has expressed concern over poor immunisation and irregularities in Tank and sought immediate government’s attention to take measures in the area that is one of the poliovirus reservoirs in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

“The situation is worrisome because we have failed to implement recommendations of technical advisory group regarding vaccination,” said a letter sent by World Health Organisation (WHO) to the health department.

Read: WHO declares Peshawar world’s ‘largest reservoir’ of polio

Sources told Dawn that WHO early this week asked Dr Rana Mohammad Safdar, National Polio Manager, to immediately organise visits to the area and bring the matter into the notice of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor and chief secretary.

“It has now been confirmed that the data sent by Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) focal point was incorrect and inaccurate,” it said.

Sources in health department said that the technician, who compiled incorrect statistics about vaccination drive, was discharged by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa secretary health, who immediately rushed to Tank.

Wants govt to take measures in one of poliovirus reservoirs in KP

The health department considered the area as highly sensitive and Sehat Ka Ittehad (Alliance for Health) programme aimed at eradicating polio, they said.

Visits by members of the emergency operations centre (EOC) of health department to Tank district would greatly help overcome the problems surrounding poor polio immunisation, they said.

According to sources, the world health agency is seeking urgent support in reservoir areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to make SKI programme a success that was launched in the province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas simultaneously last month.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has recorded seven, most of the nationwide 18 polio cases recorded in 2015. Fata registered six, Sindh three and Balochistan three polio cases this year so far. According to sources, WHO has also expressed displeasure over irregularities in polio vaccination drive, carried out in the second week of February.

Vaccinators have sent data about the district according to which they didn’t reach 962 children and 351 children remained unvaccinated due to refusal against oral polio vaccine. The letter said that in other districts the quality standard of the campaign was met but Tank failed to effectively address vaccination issues.

Tank has recorded nine cases in its nine union councils in 2014 and it is one of hard areas where the UN agencies want more focus during the campaign.

The WHO’s letter has also pointed out that district health officer of Tank faced shortage of staff personnel and their capacity and sought its support to control the situation.

Sources said that most of the union council polio workers and polio eradication officers were also new in the area and plan was afoot to deploy experienced staff in the district to carry out quality campaigns. Retired EPI staffers would be hired for two months and they would also scale up capacity of the new vaccinators, they said.

Published in Dawn March 12th , 2015

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