Abdul Khaliq Qureshi
Abbottabad
Assuring provision of every possible support and facilities to the health and other staff deputed for the polio campaign, the Commissioner Hazara Division Riaz Khan Mahsood has urged the district administrations and health functionaries to gear up for resuming the polio eradication endeavors which were suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic while the Regional Police Officer (RPO) Qazi Jamil ur Rahman assured deployment of security personnel with every mobile polio team for upcoming polio the vaccination campaign, to be commenced on 21st September next, in the entire Hazara Division.
These assurances were given at the meeting of Divisional Polio Eradication Committee held with the Commissioner Hazara Division, Riaz Khan Mahmood in the chair here today. Besides the RPO all Deputy Commissioners, District Health Officers, WHO Area Coordinator, and other concerned officers attended the meeting. The meeting reviewed in detail the polio updates of Hazara Division and comparative assessment of outcomes of the previous three polio vaccination rounds, surveillance plan as well as the current position of Covid-19.
Commissioner Riaz Khan directed to keep the focus on missing children and refusal cases of the previous drives well before the commencement of the next campaign and remarked that “it would be very bad and unfortunate if any polio case surfaces in the division which had seen no fresh case during the whole last year”. He, however, expressed satisfaction over the remarkable decline in refusal cases and said that reporting of no fresh polio case in entire Hazara Region was a clear reflection of the trend.
Emphasized on chalking out of micro-level plans to identify and address the refusal and missing children’s issues as well as other weaknesses and deficiencies, he directed the DCs to hold village and union council level meetings with locals in a bid to convince them for administering polio drops to their children.
