PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Khan Gandapur on Saturday ordered the immediate suspension of the district health officer and polio eradication coordinator in Mohmand tribal district after the detection of the current year’s first polio case in the province.

A nine-month-old girl tested positive for polio in Safi tehsil of Mohmand district, taking the national total of the cases for the year to 21.

The chief minister directed the health secretary to immediately suspend Mohmand DHO and polio eradication coordinator and hold a probe into the “poor” vaccination campaign in the tribal district, according to a news release issued here.

The health department also announced that it would take action against the health workers deployed by the partner organisations, including World Health Organisation, Unicef, and National Stop Transmission of Polio, in addition to taking steps to ensure quality vaccination drives in all districts of the province, saying the government has accorded top priority to the eradication of the virus from the province.

He also asks health secy to probe ‘poor’ vaccination drive in Mohmand tribal district

Officials of the health department said that Mohmand was among the districts whose authorities had failed to collect samples from suspected polio cases for confirmation of the disease.

They said stool samples were required to be taken from the acute paralysis cases twice within 14 days of the case detection, but as that protocol was disregarded by authorities, resulting in missed polio detection in the tribal district.

The officials said the health department, in line with the chief minister’s directives, would extend all possible care to the Mohmand child infected with polio.

They said that a report, sent to the chief minister, revealed that the girl in question had never received polio vaccine shots in routine immunisation campaigns, whereas inoculated twice in the past four door-to-door campaigns, as per initial investigations.

The officials said the health department had also got directives from the chief minister for action against the district surveillance, communication and immunisation officers deployed by partner organisations, but as the government didn’t have authority to do so, it would recommend their transfer out of the province.

They said that in a Sept 2 meeting of the provincial task force on polio, chief secretary Nadeem Aslam Chaudhry took notice of the “laxity” of the deputy commissioners, district health officers and district police officers and directed them to ensure their presence in the polio-related meetings in their respective districts.

The chief secretary wondered how the province remained without the detection of a case when sewage samples in 18 districts tested positive for the virus.

He also voiced concern about “poor surveillance and bad quality” of vaccination campaigns, which, according to him, left polio cases undetected despite the presence of virus in sewage.

The health officials insisted that many other officials tasked with eradicating polio in other districts would also face action after the examination of their performance in the next meeting of the provincial task force.

They said in most polio vaccination drives, authorities reported to have immunised over 95 per cent of the targeted children, but in reality, the virus circulated.

The officials added that recently, a polio case detected in Islamabad was traced to the virus found in Lakki Marwat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Published in Dawn, September 22nd, 2024