KARACHI: Mandatory vaccination law urged: Anti-polio drive begins
By Mukhtar Alam
KARACHI, Jan 16: A senior WHO official in Sindh has called for increase in the routine vaccination coverage against preventable diseases in children, as the province under an expanded programme of immunisation kicked off an anti-polio campaign on Tuesday.
The latest oral polio vaccine administration campaign aims to target 6.259 million children below the age of five, at a cost of Rs36 million. The cost has been re-estimated as the remuneration of vaccinators has recently been raised to Rs150 from Rs100.
Talking to Dawn at his office on Tuesday, the WHO medical officer for polio eradication, Dr M Azmoudeh, said that Sindh had been able to cover about 96 per cent of its kids deserving polio vaccines. The coverage rate is very ideal and we are very near to eradicate polio from the province at least, if the coverage is maintained during all such campaigns, he added.
Giving details of the number and proportion of confirmed polio cases globally, he said that Pakistan reported only 2.1 per cent of the total cases (1,902) reported across the globe in 2006. As many as 39 cases of polio were confirmed in Pakistan during 2006, including 12 from Sindh, he added saying that 11 of the 12 confirmed cases of Sindh pertained to children of travellers and migrants.
The province of Sindh can have some legislation for mandatory observation of routine vaccination schedule as well, he recommended.
Citing the size of population, high birth rate, migration and movement of people, including virus carriers and poor hygiene conditions in both posh and rural areas, he said that effective steps for increase in routine immunisations may include more awareness among the masses, political commitment and the nullification of false impression about polio drops and inclusion of preventive diseases and polio in the course contents at school and college levels.
He informed that a part of the population in Tando Jam was not friendly to such anti-polio campaigns due to which the problem of polio had emerged in those areas.
On the other hand parents in posh areas of Karachi too do not favour for administration of polio oral drops during campaigns as they think that they had already provided their wards with routine vaccinations, he added, saying that such attitudes surely cast negative impact on such campaigns.
In support to his instance that routine vaccination has been failing to get the due place in the country as well as Sindh, Dr Azmoudeh said that only 44 per cent of the children of one-year of age could get vaccinated in routine in 2006, the percentage of those given routine immunisation in the age of two remained 52.
Coming on to immunisation campaigns, he said that the coverage in North Nazimabad, Landhi, Gulshan-i-Iqbal and Baldia towns were yet to touch the desired level.
According to international standards, the average cost of vaccinating a child with two doses of OPV during a national immunisation day is $1. This includes the costs of social mobilisation, training and transportation, plus ice and equipment to keep the vaccine cold.
Dr Azmoudeh said that the deadline for achieving a zero-polio prevalence, originally set up as 2000 for Pakistan and some other endemic countries, had been changed to 2002, 2005 and 2008 in the past, but now a few of the donours had hinted that they would go for a reassessment of the feasibility of the polio immunisation in order to stop financing for campaigns in some of the affected countries.
