LAHORE  -  “Consistent positive environmental samples in mega districts of Lahore and Rawalpindi are a matter of concern and this shows that polio teams are missing children in the polio campaigns due to poor planning and low quality micro-plans”, highlighted the Emergency Operations Centre Coordinator and head of the polio programme in Punjab Mr Khizer Afzaal.  He was presiding over a review meeting regarding the recently concluded polio eradication campaign in 15 districts of Punjab.  Districts include Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Attock, Chakwal, Multan, Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar, Muzaffargarh, DG Khan, Rajanpur, RY Khan, Okara, Sheikhupura and Gujranwala.  Over 13.8 million children were vaccinated in the campaign, which hit an aggregate coverage of 100 per cent.  Addressing the participants, Mr Afzaal expressed concern about positive environmental samples, highlighting the need for a special emphasis on Lahore, Rawalpindi and now Chakwal.  

“The polio case in Islamabad should sound an alarm for Rawalpindi as it is located right next door to the federal capital. Lahore is also positive consistently.  While Chakwal has already reported a polio case in August”, noted the EOC coordinator.  In a tough message given to the District Health Management Teams (DHMTs) of the above three and rest of the districts, he called for redrawing of micro-plans, urging officials to lay emphasis on the desk and field validation of the same in their respective districts.  Although he cautiously welcomed improvement in pass percentage of recent post-campaign monitoring results, but at the same time the EOC head asked the DHMTs to back their claims of high still missed children coverage with authentic data.

“Please convince myself which strategy you adopted and how you managed to reduce number of missed children during this campaign”, the EOC coordinator asked the CEOs of the 15 districts participating in the meeting via a video link.  Mr Afzaal stressed on improving the quality of micro-plans, saying missed children phenomenon was linked to poor quality micro-plans. He cautioned the DHMTs that there will be no compromise on the quality of micro-plans in future, calling upon district health teams to improve coordination with partner staff in the districts.

The EOC coordinator blamed lack of supervision and validation of microplans by the tehsil and union council officers as reasons for positive environmental samples, instructing the deputy district health officers to take personal interest in polio campaigns. He warned that union council level officers will be removed from service if microplanning was found sub-optimal.

The Punjab polio programme head instructed the district officials to update record of missed children urgently.

Mr Afzaal called upon the DHMTs to dig deep in the data of union councils having low coverage and triangulate the coverage statistics with vaccine consumption rates.

The EOC coordinator inquired districts about status of flood water and plans to vaccinate children in affected areas. He was informed that only three union councils of DG Khan were affected with flood but the district was planning coverage of children in these UCs on September 25, anticipating the water will recede in these areas very soon.

The EOC coordinator was also briefed on status of post-campaign monitoring results.

He called a virtual meeting of the Chief Executive Officers of Punjab districts on Monday to apprise them about challenges in polio eradication and check their level of preparedness.

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