SIALKOT, Feb 21 (APP):Gujranwala Division Commissioner Naveed Haider Shirazi chaired the district anti-polio committee meeting here on Wednesday.
addressing the meeting, he said the polio virus had completely been eradicated from most parts of the world, Pakistan was still afflicted with the crippling disease. He said there is an urgent need to work on war footing for eradicating the virus through immunization. He said the national anti-polio campaign would be launched in the division from February 26. During the five-day anti-polio campaign, workers of the Health Department would go door-to-door and administer polio drops to every child under five years of age.
He reviewed final preparations and micro-plan of the national polio campaign in the meeting, attended by Deputy Commissioner Sialkot Muhammad Zulqarnain, Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC) General Syed Asad Raza Kazmi, CEO Health Dr. Rehan Azhar, DHO Dr. Waseem Mirza, World Health Organisation Representative Dr. Yasir, Director NCHD Dr. Adnan, Dr. Shahzad Iqbal, Dr. Shiraz Masood and the local officials of the relevant departments.
The commissioner directed the local officials to make the polio teams realise importance and effectiveness of the campaign. He said the government was spending billions of rupees to eradicate polio, and it was responsibility of officials as well as parents to uproot polio from the country. He said polio teams would be monitored on GIS and a foolproof security plan would be made with the help of the law-enforcement agencies to protect them.
He said that during the national anti-polio campaign, the teams would trace the missing children in any case, and children without physical verification would not be removed from the list of unavailable children.
Deputy Commissioner Sialkot Muhammad Zulqarnain told the commissioner that during the 5-day anti-polio campaign in Sialkot district, the teams had set a target of immunising a total of 795,877 children. To achieve the target, a total of 6,288 polio workers and staff would perform their duties. He said that 2,676 mobile teams would go to homes, schools and madrasas, 133 fixed teams would visit rural and primary health centres, dispensaries, EPI centres and hospitals. While 69 roaming/transit teams would perform the national duty at lorry addas, bus stops and important squares and markets.
The deputy commissioner said that 129 union council monitoring officers and 536 area in-charges would perform duties to monitor the campaign, assistant commissioners and deputy DHOs in all four tehsils would jointly supervise the campaign.
The commissioner awarded certificates of appreciation to eight polio workers and supervisors who performed the best in the previous polio campaign.