LAHORE: Punjab Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) Coordinator and head of the polio programme in Punjab Khizer Afzaal has directed all the districts of the province to finalise and submit micro plans as per timelines mentioned in National Emergency Action Plan (NEAP).

He said this at a meeting on Friday held to review districts’ readiness for the upcoming National Immunization Drive starting from Feb 26.

The EOC head called upon districts to be extra vigilant in high-risk union councils, especially in districts where recently polio virus has been detected.

He inquired about districts’ inability to meet NEAP indicators deadline and stressed on them to meet the criterion of government accountable persons in polio teams.

“Districts falling behind on government accountable percentage in polio teams need to improve their performance,” urged the EOC coordinator.

He called on the district health department heads including the chief executive officers and district health officers to visit polio teams’ training venues and monitor the orientation sessions. “The CEO and other government officials need to take complete ownership of the trainings as well as polio campaigns”, instructed the EOC head.

Mr Afzaal appreciated the performance of districts saying that despite election duties, the health staff led the preparations of the campaign.

However, he cautioned that there was no room for complacency and the districts needed to be efficient on missed children data. “Despite improvements districts still need to improve on data quality. Missed children data needs to be entered into system on time and efficiently”, the EOC coordinator directed.

He instructed all districts to cover all zero doze routine immunization children by Monday which were identified by polio teams in the recent NIDs.

The districts informed the EOC that required vaccine has been received in the district stores and they were ready to implement the campaign.

The EOC coordinator was informed that Vitamin-A capsules have also been sent to all districts as per requirements which will be administered to children between 4-59 months of age during the campaign.

Over 200,000 polio workers and supervisors will participate in the drive to immunize 22.50 million children.

Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2024