ISLAMABAD: The federal government has integrated the two major health programmes - Expanded Programmes on Immunisation (EPI) and the Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI) - due to security threats to polio workers in Pakistan.
Official sources said yesterday the government has made the anti-polio drive part of the routine immunisation largely to prevent the polio staff from attacks by some elements who believe the “anti polio drops” are a conspiracy against the children. The PEI has suffered a setback in the wake of some killings of polio workers in Karachi, Fata (federally administered tribal areas) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).
Most of the countries had eliminated the crippling disease wild polio virus under the Global PEI programme launched by the World Health Assembly in 1988 by passing a resolution. However, this programme could not get required results due to some factors, including security issues in Pakistan.
The EPI is a disease prevention activity aimed at reducing illness, disability and mortality from nine childhood diseases preventable by immunisation. The global target of the programme is to immunise over 95 percent of infants and child-bearing-age females.
A senior official said that under this first initiative of its kind taken by the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination, no separate or exclusive drives will be launched for polio eradication. He said all the stakeholders concerned, including the World Health Organisation, Unicef, and the provincial health ministries, have categorically been told to implement this new scheme from the first week of the coming month.
It is being expected that under the EPI programme, the staff will be able to reach millions of missed and not-available children in the inaccessible localities. He said the Punjab health department has started implementation in phases and identified five districts where the campaign will be launched from May 5. The districts are Lahore, Multan, Muzaffargarh, Dera Ghazi Khan and Rahim Yar Khan.
The official said the two programme were merged under a strategy and the WHO and Unicef would continue to provide technical and communication support to the provincial governments.
From now on the slogan “anti-polio drive” will not be used before or during the campaign. The officials of the WHO and the Unicef will use the words like “drive against preventable diseases?”during the awareness campaigns.
“The integration of the two programmes will help strengthen the EPI activities and achieve the above 95 percent target of immunisation coverage to the children,” Punjab Health Director-General Dr Zahid Pervez said.
He said his department was presently facing shortage of field staff to implement the new strategy. “Initially, we are going to launch the integrated programmed in five districts and the department has conveyed this to the Ministry of Health and Regulations,” he said.
INTERNEWS
