The progress towards eradication of poliovirus globally is one of the greatest success stories of the global health community. When the Global Polio Eradication Initiative started in 1988, polio paralysed
The district coordination officers (DCOs) and executive district officers (EDOs) of the health department may face the axe for showing slackness in the upcoming sub-national three-day polio immunisation campaign beginning on Tuesday.
- International experts, invited to Pakistan by the Federal Health Ministry for technical review and guidance in the wake of number of polio cases reported in Sindh province, has stressed urgent measures and have held the district leadership as the key to give polio eradication drive a shot in the arm with a view to finally ridding the country of the disease that causes permanent irreversible disability among children.
Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah has asked the provincial health department to hold special training courses for all its grades 19 and 20 doctors to equip them with managerial skills.
: As a part of the ongoing polio virus control and environmental surveillance activities, the Sindh health department is considering a proposal to test sewage specimens to be collected from various parts of Karachi and others parts of Sindh. The samples are proposed to be examined in collaboration with certain national and international organizations to see if polio viruses were present. Sources in the health department said that the proposal was discussed at a meeting of senior representatives of international health organizations and the Sindh health department held here on Monday.
The Centre for People's Empowerment and Equality (CPEE) at a meeting of its executive committee here on Sunday expressed concern over rising number of polio cases in the country, particularly in Sindh, as 11 confirmed cases were reported in the first half of the year. The meeting of the CPEE held with its chairperson Nasreen Shakeel Pathan in the chair discussed detection of fresh polio cases and observed that the country was most likely to miss the target of being polio free status.
The Sindh health department is expected to place the issue of vulnerability of children beyond five years to polio in a meeting of international experts on polio eradication scheduled to be held in the city on June 24 and 25. Sources in the health department said that prior to the emergence of cases of polio among children above five years of age, the authorities had no clue to the pattern of the disease in this age group, and now they were considering raising the age-limit for polio vaccination from five to 10 years, to provide protection to children in this age bracket as well.
Alarmed by the recent reports of laboratory-confirmed polio-virus cases in Sindh, some highly designated international experts on polio eradication are rushing to Karachi to review the long prevailing supplementary immunisation activities and find out the loopholes. A source privy to the immunization initiatives in the province said that an emergency meeting of the Technical Advisory Group on Polio Eradication for Pakistan had been convened on June 24 and 25 at Karachi to review progress on "interrupting wild polio transmission'.
There were 1,313 cases of polio last year. So far this year, there have been 558 cases. Here is a list of countries that have reported polio this year: India: 258 Nigeria: 247 Angola: 12 Pakistan: 11 Niger: 9 Afghanistan: 8 Chad: 4 Nepal: 3 Democratic Republic of the Congo: 2 Benin: 1 Central African Republic: 1 Ethiopia: 1 Sudan: 1 Note: As of June 10 Source: Global Polio Eradication Initiative Yahoo! Buzz Digg Newsvine Reddit FacebookWhat's this?By Steve Sternberg, USA TODAY
Pushpa M. Bhargava Even the appropriate WHO document clearly states that there is evidence that OPV has not worked in developing countries.
Two new cases of polio have been detected -- one in Kohat and the other in Karachi in recent days, taking to 11 the number of children hit by the dreaded virus this year. The national manager of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation, Dr H B Memon, told Dawn that the Kohat case had been confirmed by authorities in Islamabad on Monday.
