PESHAWAR, May 18: Secretary (social sector) of Fata Dr Aftab Durrani on Friday urged political agents and agency surgeons in the tribal region to adopt a policy of ‘more stick than carrot’ for polio eradication.

“At the end of the day, they (political agents and agency surgeons) will be held accountable for failure in rooting out the menace from their respective areas,” Dr Aftab said during a daylong orientation session for political agents, assistant political agents, district coordination officers and agency surgeons of all seven Fata agencies and frontier regions.

The Fata Secretariat had organised the session in collaboration with Unicef.

During the meeting, additional chief secretary of Fata Dr Tashfeen Khan directed the tribal region’s political agents to ensure better reporting mechanism, communication strategy and outreach in their respective areas for polio eradication.

He said there was a need to streamline reporting mechanism i.e. who was answerable to who at the agency level, and improve communication strategy and outreach to ensure coverage of more and more children in Fata in every round of polio campaign.

Dr Tashfeen called for an out-of-the-box solution to polio and asked Fata political agents and agency surgeons to come up with the localised strategies to defeat the crippling disease in their respective areas.

He said more women should be included in health teams, especially those working in accessible areas of Fata, before sending them to the security compromised areas.

“Instead of blame game, it is time to pool our resources, expertise and finances together for polio eradication,” he said.

The additional chief secretary directed the Fata political agents to accord top priority to polio eradication after maintenance of law and order in their respective areas, saying the country is to eliminate virus by the end of the year.

Technical focal person on polio at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat Dr Imtiaz laid emphasis on pre-immunisation campaign phase and said it led to a successful drive. He said performance of India in polio eradication was not very good but involvement of magistracy turned around things there.

Dr Imtiaz further said in Pakistan, involvement of political and district administration had yielded positive results in terms of polio eradication.

Deputy director of Expanded Programme of Immunisation, Fata, Sahibzada Khalid said 1.06 million children were targeted in every round of polio campaign in the tribal region.

He stressed the need for strengthening routine immunisation in Fata, saying it leaves little room for carrying out anti-polio campaigns.

Secretary (administration and coordination) of Fata Munir Azam, DCO of Peshawar Siraj Ahmad Khan, director (health services) of Fata Dr Fawad, deputy director of EPI, Fata, Sahibzada Khalid, Unicef programme specialist, Fata, Dr Rafiq, WHO team leader in Fata Dr Ubaid, WHO Fata coordinator Dr Sarfaraz, Fata political agents, assistant political agents and agency surgeons attended the orientation session.