Polio Eradication Campaign Launched in Punjab after Detection of Polio Virus in Rawalpindi
Key Highlights :
Polio, a highly contagious viral disease, has been a major public health concern in Pakistan for many years. The country has been struggling to eradicate the disease from its population and has been making efforts to bring down the number of cases. In this regard, the Punjab government has launched a polio eradication campaign from Monday (August 7) after the detection of polio virus in one of the environmental sites in Rawalpindi.
The Outbreak Response (OBR) campaign will be held in five tehsils of Rawalpindi and four tehsils of Attock. Vaccination will be conducted in Fateh Jang, Hazro, Attock, Hassan Abdal of Attock district and Gujjar Khan, Rawalpindi Cantonment, Rawalpindi City, Rawalpindi Rural and Taxila tehsils of Rawalpindi district. This campaign will target nearly 1.1 million children and will last for six days.
The Punjab Emergency Operations Centre (PEOC) has taken several steps to ensure a smooth implementation of the campaign in both the districts. Teams have been formed to vaccinate all children aged five years or less and experts have been deployed to monitor the campaign.
Rawalpindi has three environmental sampling sites which are located at Safdarabad, Dhok Dallal and Serae Kala. Serae Kala was added to the list of environmental sites only in December last year to reinforce polio virus surveillance and to plan any response on time. This is the first time the district has tested positive since September 2022 and the third sample which has tested positive in Punjab this year.
Mr Khizer Afzaal Chaudhary, Emergency Operations Centre Coordinator and head of the polio programme in Punjab, stated that, “The positive sample in Rawalpindi indicates that the virus is circulating in the region, even if no one case has been identified it’s alarming for all the children. Government is launching the vaccination response from Monday to vaccinate every child by administering polio drops to boost their immunity against the crippling disease.”
He further added that, “If a single case is reported in a region, it remains threat to children residing in 200 houses in vicinity. Even though no case is reported from Punjab up till now, but the positive environmental samples are a clear message to all the parents to vaccinate their children with two drops of polio every time it is offered.”
To ensure effective surveillance, Punjab has set up 31 polio environmental sampling sites in 19 districts. These include Lahore, Multan, Khanewal, Bahawalnagar, Jhang, Attock, Gujrat, Mianwali, DG Khan, Rajanpur, Bahawalpur, Rahim Yar Khan, Faisalabad, Sargodha, Rawalpindi Gujranwala, Sialkot, Sahiwal and Okara.
Surveillance for Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) is considered to be the ‘gold standard’ for polio surveillance in endemic and polio-free countries. But experts also indicated that environmental surveillance could serve as an early warning system for the detection of poliovirus when targeting areas where high-risk groups, such as mobile population, under or un-immunised populations, reside.
The Punjab government's efforts to eradicate polio through launching the polio eradication campaign is a step in the right direction and will help reduce the risk of polio in the region. It is important for parents to ensure that their children are vaccinated with two drops of polio every time it is offered. This will help protect their children from the crippling disease and ensure that the country is polio-free.
