PPA Pledges Support For Polio Vaccination, Essential Immunization Across Province

PESHAWAR, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 25th Sep, 2025) The Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in collaboration with United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), organized a one-day roundtable session at Abbottabad on Thursday with the provincial chapter of Pakistan Pediatric Association (PPA) to chalk out a joint strategy for overcoming the existing challenges in polio eradication in the province.

During the session, the PPA made a strong commitment for polio eradication in the province by formally signing a Declaration of Commitment (DoC) at the conclusion of the session.

The session was attended by 30 participants including cabinet members of PPA and leading pediatricians of Peshawar, Mardan, Bannu, and D. I Khan divisions as well as District Swat, Bajaur, Kohat and Abbottabad.

The session was chaired by Additional Secretary Health and EOC Coordinator Shafiullah Khan while Deputy Coordinator EOC, Technical Focal Person PEI, representatives of partner organizations and EOC officials were also present on this occasion.

Addressing the session, Additional Secretary Health and EOC Coordinator Shafiullah Khan said that polio eradication, being a national emergency, is among the top priorities of the government and entire administrative machinery, law enforcement agencies and health department officials are actively participating in the whole process to oversee and manage ground challenges and ensure administration of polio drops to all eligible children.

Shafiullah Khan explained that in order to tackle the challenge of polio eradication and bridge the gaps in the program, the program has put in place various innovative strategies which prove helpful in accessing the unreachable pockets specially in Bannu and D. I Khan divisions.

However, he pointed out, the growing trends of misconceptions about polio vaccines especially in southern and central KP including Peshawar are proving to be a major stumbling block in ensuring the vaccination of all eligible children in vaccination drives.

Highlighting the critical role of pediatricians in supporting the government to protect our children from this crippling disease and achieve the goal of polio free Pakistan, he said that as health professionals especially doctors are a very significant and respected segment of society and people from all walks of life listen to them very seriously and act upon their advises.

Doctors can play a pivotal role in shaping the public opinion in favour of polio vaccination and specifically in removing public misconceptions and resistance to polio vaccines.

Therefore, he added, the program is focusing on engaging senior doctors, pediatricians, local healthcare providers and clinicians to orient them on the changing program dynamics and challenges with the aim of bringing them on board so as to raise the voice base for polio vaccination and essential immunization through these trusted voices and help remove the misgivings in the communities regarding safety and efficacy of polio vaccination and other essential immunization.

Addressing the session, President of PPA-KP, Dr. Bawar Shah said that Pakistan and Afghanistan were unfortunately the only two countries where the polio virus still existed.

He thanked the donors and partner organizations for their support for eradication of this crippling disease; however, he stressed that to ensure polio eradication, we need to strengthen routine immunization. On this occasion, he pledged to extend full support on behalf of PPA at the provincial level to address the existing challenges in polio eradication.

Technical experts of the program including Dr. Sardar Qaisar and Ms. Shadab Younas delivered detailed presentations on the existing operational and communication strategies and achievements of the program and placed the existing challenges including misconceptions about vaccines among the communities before the pediatricians and sought their support to raise risk perception among the communities and remove the existing misconceptions about vaccines.

Dr. Inuwa Yau, team lead UNICEF KP, while addressing the workshop, appreciated the contribution of pediatricians in partnering with EOC for polio eradication and hoped that they will keep continue their support for sustaining the acceptability of vaccines at community as well as extending support in addressing the concerns and misconceptions of those who are reluctant to vaccine acceptability.

He added that we are engaging our partners including paediatricians, media personnel, religious scholars and provincial lawmakers under a strategic engagement plan in high-risk areas to serve as community influencers and communicate a unified message to the community in favour of polio vaccination and essential immunization.

Addressing the session, Dr. Ali Haider, Technical Focal person for PEI KP, thanked the pediatricians for their active participation in the session and sought their support for changing the minds of the people towards vaccine acceptability.

He also hoped that PPA representatives will serve as key guest speakers in our media engagement activities on polio eradication and essential immunization.

Senior journalist and trainer Saeed Minhas engaged the participants in a group activity to serve as advocates for immunization, as influencers in the community, address misinformation and community fatigue about vaccines as well as to highlight the significance of their role in AFP surveillance.

During presentation of their respective group work, each group suggested valuable inputs for addressing myths and misinformation, as well as making the surveillance system more effective.

The forum came up with solid recommendations for addressing the operational and communications challenges. The workshop proved to be a very insightful and interactive session and the participants suggested valuable suggestions and strategies to overcome the existing challenges in operation, communication and surveillance to further improve polio eradication efforts and ensure the eradication of this crippling disease once and for all.

On this occasion, the PPA representatives formally signed a Declaration of Commitment (DoC) under which they reaffirmed their strong and unwavering resolve to protect every child through life-saving vaccines and to support the mission of eradicating poliovirus once and for all.

Under this declaration, the paediatricians made a strong commitment to advocate for timely and complete immunization of all children, to support the government and partner organizations’ efforts to eradicate poliovirus, to educate and counsel parents and caregivers to overcome vaccine hesitancy as well as to detect and report any suspected cases of Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) promptly to strengthen surveillance.

At the conclusion of the workshop, shields and certificates were distributed among the participants.