CM seeks parents’ cooperation as week-long polio drive begins

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has urged parents to cooperate with the vaccination teams that knock on their doors to administer polio drops to their children so that they can be saved from the crippling disease.

His message to the parents came just after inaugurating a week-long polio drive at the CM House. Health Minister Dr Azra Pechuho, Chief Secretary Sohail Rajput, Karachi police chief Javed Odho, Health Secretary Zulfiqar Shah, Emergency Operation Centre for Eradication of Polio (EOC) Coordinator Fayaz Abbasi and others were also present on the occasion.

CM Shah said he was happy to announce that during the past two years no new case of polio had emerged in Sindh. However, he pointed out, polio was yet to be eradicated from Pakistan. “We, with the support of parents, with the efforts of the health department and the EOC, and with the door-to-door campaign by polio workers have succeeded in controlling polio, but it’s yet to be eradicated from the country,” he said, and urged parents to cooperate with the teams visiting them to administer polio vaccine to their children.

The EOC has launched a week-long (October 24 to October 30) campaign against polio in 21 districts of the province, and partially in the flood-affected districts of Jamshoro, Shaheed Benazirabad and Kambar.

During the week-long drive, the provincial government hopes to administer oral polio vaccine (OPV) to 6.6 million children. The campaign boasts the participation of 17,859 teams. Sindh has not reported a single case of polio since July 2020, but the environment samples returned positive this August. An additional campaign was conducted in high-risk pockets of Karachi, then the environment samples returned negative again.

The government believes that it is good for the programme and for the future of Pakistan’s children, and that if they continue with the same momentum, they will see more significant results.

However, the government acknowledges that it should not be complacent, and should continue the efforts until they fully eradicate the virus from every corner of the country. The government also believes that in addition to tackling the pandemic, childhood immunisation needs to be conducted to prevent childhood diseases because the benefits of vaccination are clear, as frequent campaigns have significantly reduced the burden of polio across the country.

The government further believes that children can be saved from childhood diseases like polio, measles, typhoid, etc. through vaccination, and they seek the media’s help to raise awareness about this.

Pakistan is one of the two polio-endemic countries in the world, the other being Afghanistan, and has so far reported a total of 20 polio cases this year — all in southern KhyberPakhtunkhwa.

The Pakistan Paediatric Association, the Pakistan Islamic Medical Association, medical experts around the world, and prominent religious scholars in Pakistan and across the region endorse OPV as the safest and the most effective for preventing polio and eradicating it from the environment.