Journalists Imparted Training On Health, Polio Reporting

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Emergency Operations Center (EOC) organized a day-long training workshop for senior journalists on "Reporting health & Polio news" in Swat on Tuesday

PESHAWAR, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 20th Oct, 2020 ) :Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Emergency Operations Center (EOC) organized a day-long training workshop for senior journalists on "Reporting health & Polio news" in Swat on Tuesday.

The Primary objective of the workshop was to update journalists about the immunization services, highlight importance of vaccination for every child and built their capacity on health and polio related news.

Addressing the workshop, Additional Secretary Health (polio) and Coordinator EOC Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Abdul Basit appreciated role of media in creating mass awareness about significance of immunization including polio eradication initiative and changing negative perceptions through objective reporting.

Additional Deputy Commissioner Swat, Hamid Khan, representative of district health department, partner organizations and senior journalists from leading print and electronic media were present on the occasion.

Abdul Basit emphasized the need for strengthening of overall essential immunization status of children in the region so as to have good immunity to fight with vaccine preventable diseases saying that media can play a vital role in this regard by sensitizing people about significance of vaccination through news reports.

He said that progress has been made in bringing down the numbers of polio cases this year as 22 WPV cases have been reported from the province compared to 60 last year in this point in time that is 63 percent achievement.

However, he went on add that concerted efforts are needed to sustain the achievements and built on it till the virus transmission stops in the region.

He thanked journalists for turning up in good numbers and for taking keen interest in the activity saying that media has been supporting the cause of polio eradication for many years and hope that it will continue to contribute its part till the region earns polio free certification from World Health Organization (WHO).

Provincial Polio Eradication Office Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (WHO), Dr. Waheed Kamran informed participants about poliomyelitis, virus strains, vaccine safety & efficacy, CVDPV2, frequency of campaigns and requisites for certification of last endemic region.

He spoke about history of the disease, types of polio vaccine and need for repeated doses for eradication of the crippling disease from the region.

Technical Focal Person, Dr. Imtiaz Ali Shah shared global and national polio updates with the participants, informed about National Emergency Action Plan (NEAP) 2020 operational & communication priorities.

He also discussed key challenges for the Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI) and way forward to addressing these challenges with right interventions at all levels.

Senior journalist and Bureau Chief Nawai-e-Wakt, M. Riaz Khan, while sharing his experience of health reporting, said that misreported health incidents have enormous impact on people's perceptions and costs us number of lives and disabilities.

"A health report based on half information leads to community mistrust and refusals against essential vaccines that saves children from different diseases", he said, adding that a good health reporter should always look for complete information and cross check it before filing it for public information." Riaz Khan while conducting a session on responsible and objective reporting of stories related to health and polio, advised journalists on having dedicated segments and features on addressing public misconceptions about vaccination in their respective media outlets.

A detailed question and answer session was also held wherein the journalists asked various questions related to polio and shared their valuable inputs for improving immunization services in the province.

Later, Coordinator EOC Abdul Basit, ADC Swat Hamid Khan along with EOC team distributed certificates among the participants followed by a vote of thanks.