PESHAWAR: With the next immunisation campaign against 11 diseases slated to be held early next month, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa health department has planned to focus on“low-performing” union councils in southern and snowbound districts of the province.

“Though we have to immunise 1.3 million children under two years of age in the province against vaccine-preventable diseases, including polio, in the next drive, the focus will be on 80 UCs in North and South Waziristan, Lakki Marwat, Dera Ismail Khan, Lower and Upper Kohistan, and Kolai-Palas districts, where immunisation levels are low. We’re devising a strategy to reach all children for their protection from diseases,” director at the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) Dr Mohammad Arif Khan told Dawn.

According to him, the health department along with UN agencies recently assessed the vaccination coverage and found 80 UCs to be low-performing due to low immunisation levels, so corrective measures were planned.

“During meetings, we discussed the immunisation programme’s weaknesses and drew up a plan in collaboration with the UN agencies and other partners to administer vaccines to all children,” he said.

1.3m children to be vaccinated against 11 diseases next month

The director said routine immunisation suffered as the health workers were engaged for Covid-19 vaccination after the outbreak of the virus.

He, however, said during the last three months, the department had carried as many intensified campaigns inoculating around 600,000 children with infrequent vaccination and 90,000 with no vaccination.

Dr Arif said the next immunisation campaign would begin next month adopting different approaches to districts to reach all children.

He said in areas with security issues, the department had planned to engage community elders, social mobilisers and influencers to address people’s hesitation against immunisation, while arrangements would be made in snowbound areas like Chitral, Hazara and Swat districts to administer jabs to the children.

“There are also scattered as well as migrant populations in some districts as well as hard terrains, which will be tackled in line with the new strategy. A proper mapping will be carried out to find out migrants and ensure accessibility of the health workers,” he said.

The director said there was a system of accountability in the routine immunisation programme. He said the department had 1,929 fixed EPI’s centres in health facilities.

“Every EPI centre has the data of children in catchment areas,” he said, adding that the data would be verified through a management information system.

Dr Arif said the province had 3,500 EPI technicians, who inoculated children in those centres as well as during outreach activities.

He said the maintaining of cold chain management was the basic requirement for effective vaccination and therefore, the facilities at divisional, district and central level would be checked to ensure vaccines are stored at proper temperature to maintain their efficacy.

“During annual meetings, we compared the working of low-performing UCs with high- performing ones to replicate the latter’s strategy in the former and plug loopholes,” he said.

The director said the health department had also introduced a mechanism to address vaccination refusals and inform the people about the importance of those jabs for the protection of children against host of ailments.

“We will deploy trained social mobilisers to change the mind of the people for accepting vaccination,” he said.

Dr Arif also said the department had enlisted support of religious scholars to tell hesitant parents that it was their responsibility according to Islamic teachings to save their children from diseases through immunisation.

Meanwhile, a five-day special anti-polio campaign was inaugurated in nine selected union councils of Bajaur tribal district.

Deputy commissioner Fahad Wazir inaugurated the drive during a special ceremony in his office, according to an official statement.

Senior officials of the district administration, health department, WHO and other international organisations were present on the occasion. The DC administered polio drops to a child.

The statement did not specify the names and number of regions to be covered by the campaign.

The DC directed officials, especially those of the district administration, to act against those disrupting the children’s vaccination.

Also, Dera Ismail Khan additional deputy commissioner Tariq Mehmood inaugurated the anti-polio campaign by administering thevaccine to children up to five years of age.

The campaign will continue from Feb 13 through Feb 19.

The ADC told Dawn that 364,422 children would be targeted by 2,403 health teams in the district.

DPO Mohammad Shoaib said 450 police officials would be deployed for the campaign.

Meanwhile, health authorities finalised arrangements to immunise 452,191 children under the age of five years in Bannu and Lakki Marwat districts.

They said the 1,277 teams had been formed to vaccinate 255,788 children in Bannu, while 998 teams would administer polio drops to 196,403 children in Lakki Marwat at home, hospitals, health centres and other fixed points.

Lakki Marwat deputy commissioner Fazal Akbar inaugurated the five-day polio campaign in the district.

Former minister Malik Shah Mohammad Khan launched the drive in the Wazir subdivision of Bannu district.

Our correspondents from Bajaur, DI Khan and Lakki Marwat contribute to this report.

Published in Dawn, February 12th, 2023