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Daudpota vows to wipe out polio

KARACHI: Sindh Governor Air Marshal Azim Daudpota (Retd) has vowed to wipe out polio from the province by the year 2000.

He said this in a meeting with Dr. Hussein A. Gezairy and Nigel Fisher, the regional directors of the WHO and the Unicef respectively here on Thursday.

Dr. Gezairy is leading a high-level mission represented by WHO, Unicef, Rotary International, Centre for Disease Control Atlanta and other donor agencies. The mission is here to raise the issue of polio eradication by the year 2000 and improvements in the EPI services at the highest level.

Provincial Health Minister Professor S.M. Rab and other senior health officials were also present on the occasion.

Under the EPI, children under one-year of age are vaccinated against six killer disease including polio, neonatal tetanus, measles, TB and diphtheria.

The purpose of the visit is to present the provincial picture, duly analysed by the experts, to the governor taking into account all of the hurdles and bottlenecks coming in the way to polio eradication and to win the governor's support.

Meanwhile, the governor agreed to allocate a substantial amount of Rs 10 million as "reserved funds" from his provincial discretionary funds for strengthening and improving the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) in Sindh. This fund will only be used as and when some emergency will emerge. As soon as the money is released from the regular health budget, the gap or shortfall in the "reserved fund" will be fulfilled forthwith.

The governor thanked the donors, particularly WHO for its continued support. He said district health officers (DHOs) would be further facilitated and made fully responsible of their individual districts with regard to the EPI, particularly polio eradication. They will also be held accountable in the face of any misdoing. There will be an authority at district level that will closely supervise and monitor the activities being undertaken.

Dr. Hussein stressed on the improvements in the routine immunisation coverage in order to eradicate polio. He said the routine immunisation coverage is weak in this province and needed considerable improvement until the level of 80 percent. At present, it is around 40 to 50 percent.

Moreover, he said we could not afford to eradicate polio at the cost of other vaccine preventable diseases like neonatal tetanus and measles. Therefore, he said efforts should be made to raise the routine immunisation side-by-side with the polio eradication campaigns.

Dr. Gezairy urged the Sindh government to make some special arrangements for buffer stock of vaccine and syringes so that if the situation was well tackled in case the supplies from the federal level were belayed for one reason or the other.

The WHO regional director also brought the attention of the governor to the issue of cold chain system which he said needed special attention. He said experts from WHO would come to train the people on the issue of cold chain system.

The Unicef regional director urged the need to make improvements in the routine immunisation through social mobilisation. He said people from all walks of life including teachers and Imam of mosques should be involved to mobilise the parents to have their children immunised.

Later, the health minister while talking to this scribe disclosed that the government had made a special body under the chairmanship of the governor to monitor the EPI and polio situation in the province.

The minister and secretaries of relevant departments will be its members. This committee will meet every moth regularly. "The idea is to have multi-sectoral approach for this noble cause of safeguarding our children, he commented.

Meanwhile, Dr. Gezairy visited College of Physicians and Surgeons, Surgical Intensive Care Unit of Civil Hospital Karachi, Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) and Dow Medical College. He also inaugurated "Gezairy corner" in the library of the Dow Medical College.

Dr. Hussein Gezairy was very impressed by these facilities. He said SIUT was living example of community partnership. "If there is transparency and efficiency, people are ready to come in. This institute is a real example," he maintained. APP