862 Million Children Vaccinated Polio Drops In Last Two Years

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 10th Nov, 2016 ) : Around 862 million children of under five years were administered Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) across country from 2013 to 2015. The OPV drops vaccinated through the National Supplementary Immunization Days (NIDs) and Sub-National Immunization Days (SNIDs) aimed at complete eradication of virus, through door to door strategy covering all villages and even households.

Nationwide campaign involves around 85041 mobile and 5125 transit teams, a total of 6697 fixed sites support vaccine and logistics for the activity, official sources told APP. They said fixed sites also provide vaccination services visiting health facilities during the campaign the children against polio all across the country.

To access each village during every campaign, detailed micro plans are worked out at Union Council level, they said adding, within the micro plan, teams comprising of two members each are also guided about their daily work and route to be taken.

Adequate arrangements are therefore, in place to cover all villages targeted during a particular campaign, they apprised. The polio teams comprising of the officials from the health, education and security and other government departments as well as volunteers record all children that could not be vaccinated during first visit for being not-available or refusal as the case may be.

The following strategy is pursued to ensure vaccination of these missed children. The teams revisit the missed households on the same day of the three-day campaign to covering the missed children and update record accordingly.

The 4th (and if required 5th) day of the campaign is utilized to cover the remaining missed children. The children that remain still-missed, are covered up by health officials and World Health Organization and United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) staff during the 14 days extended catch-up period, they said.

The community influencers and religious leaders are also engaged to vaccinate the recorded refusals as required during the process. They informed that the above operation is completed by using around 223,000 personnel in every nationwide campaign including 19,211 Area incharges, 9,792 Union Council Medical Officers, 85,041 Mobile, 9,995 Fixed and 5,125 Transit Teams.