PESHAWAR: Amid the detection of back-to-back polio cases from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the provincial chief secretary has voiced serious concern about a lack of participation by the deputy commissioners, district police officers and district health officers in meetings on preparedness for polio eradication and ordered punitive action against such officers.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which reported its first polio case of the current year from Mohmand district on August 25, has recorded 15 cases since then, with officials attributing the trend to unchecked refusal of children’s vaccination by people.

Officials said chief secretary Nadeem Aslam Chaudhry had repeatedly highlighted the absence of deputy commissioners, district police officers and district health officers from meetings called to discuss anti-polio strategies, especially ways to address weaknesses in immunisation, and asked those officers to take the issue seriously, but his directives largely fell on deaf ears.

During a recent meeting of the provincial task force on polio, the chief secretary directed authorities to act against those absenting themselves from meetings regarding polio immunisation and eradication, with action including removal from the current offices.

He said polio eradication was the government’s topmost priority.

Chief secretary orders appointment of committed officers

The chief secretary expressed annoyance at the absence of even many DCs, DHOs and DPOs and directed the establishment department to issue a charge-sheet to them.

He ordered the appointment of “committed officers, who can attend all meetings on anti-polio drives,” saying it is mandatory to ensure that children are vaccinated in their respective areas.

Official sources said that the meeting was informed that the officers staying away from those meetings had “other pressing official engagements,” but the contention was rejected by the chief secretary.

They added that the chief secretary insisted that the officers should have informed the additional chief secretary about such engagements beforehand so that the alternate arrangements would have been made.

The sources said the DHOs were asked to take prior permission from the health secretary in case of remaining absent from the meetings at district level.

On the occasion, the chief secretary directed the health secretary to formally seek explanation from DHOs for skipping meetings and said those officers should be removed from their posts if they remained absent from three to four meetings.

The officials said that the provincial and federal governments were required to ensure that every child receives two anti-polio drops in every campaign until they reached five years of age.

They said Pakistan had so far recorded 56 polio cases this year, including 26 from Balochistan, 15 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 13 from Sindh, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.

The officials said that currently, Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan were the only polio-endemic countries in the world due to vaccination refusals based on misconceptions, which exposed unvaccinated children to paralysis and lifelong disabilities.

They said the district level meetings were supposed to take action against those refusing polio vaccination or avoiding vaccination for avoiding health workers, so such issues should be brought to the notice of DCs, DPOs and DHOs to ensure immunisation.

The chief secretary also told authorities to use international funds for dealing with the poliovirus and said it would be very difficult to cope with the situation once the money dried up.

Published in Dawn, November 29th, 2024