Commissioner For Special Attention To Missed, Refusals, Zero Dose Children During Polio Campaign

There is a need to pay more attention to missed children refusals and zero dose children and in this regard such children should be covered in the post-campaign, said Commissioner Hyderabad

HYDERABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 20th Oct, 2023) There is a need to pay more attention to missed children refusals and zero dose children and in this regard such children should be covered in the post-campaign, said Commissioner Hyderabad.

He was presiding over the meeting of the Divisional Task Force regarding the NID polio campaign which began from October 2 to 8.

He further said that the District Health Officers of the respective districts should direct the vaccinators to obtain the list of zero-dose children during the polio campaign and cater polio drops to the zero-dose children in the field along with EPI doses.

He said that due to seasonal migration, more attention should have to be paid to the mountainous area and the coastal area.

Talking to the meeting, Provincial Coordinator Emergency Operations Center Polio Irshad Sodhar said that the purpose of this meeting is to review the deficiencies that have appeared during the October polio campaign. He said that Hyderabad, Jamshoro, Thatta, Sajawal, and Badin districts bordering Karachi are more sensitive.

He said that more attention should be given to the Afghan population because the polio cases in Karachi have been shown to be related to the Afghan city of Kandahar and southern KPK province.

He said that Polio teams will be appointed in major railway stations and trains in the division.

During the meeting, the Deputy Commissioners of Hyderabad, Thatta Badin, Sajawal, Tando Alahyar, Tando Muhammad Khan, Jamshoro, Dadu and Matiari spoke about the problems during the polio campaign and said that attention should be paid to the training of medical officers and area in-charge and told that there is a shortage of transport for polio teams. WHO representative Dr. Earle said that the missed children should be identified and given polio drops.

While briefing the chair representatives of the divisional task force, said that this year the NID polio campaign has been held for the second time in which the polio teams, revenue and other departments have done a better job.

Briefing about the statistics, it was said that there are still not available children in the division while the number of rejected children is 705 and the number of zero-dose children is 2991.

They said that the highest number of refusal to take polio drops is 672 which is in Hyderabad while the monitoring teams have found 52 missed areas. Out of 30 LQAS samples, 22 have passed and 8 have failed. WHO representatives also participated in the meeting.