Sindh Chief Secretary Muhammad Siddiqui Memon has instructed commissioners and deputy commissioners to personally monitor the ongoing polio eradication campaign in their respective divisions and districts.
He gave these directives at a meeting held at the Sindh secretariat to review the efforts being made by the provincial government for the eradication of polio.
Minister of State for Health Saira Afzal Tarrar, Sindh Health Minister Jam Mehtab Hussain Dahar, and Senator Ayesha Raza Farooq, provincial chief for anti-polio drive Azra Pechuho, Federal Secretary Muhammad Ayub Shaikh, Additional Chief Secretary Muhammad Waseem, Commissioner Karachi Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui and Coordinator Dr Usman Chachar attended the meeting.
POLIO IN KARACHI
Two more cases of polio have emerged in the Karachi, raising the number of the dreadful disease in the metropolis to four and nine in the entire Sindh province since Jan 1, 2015.
The two new polio cases have surfaced in the city’s Gadap Town union councils 5 & 6.
One of them is a 22-month-old Mudasir, son of Khanzada, who resides in Gadap Town’s UC-5. His both legs have been affected. The other one is a 47-month-old Shayan, son of Shahid Alam. He is a resident of Gadap’s UC-6 and his right leg has been affected.
A spokesman for Sindh’s Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for Polio Eradication and Immunization said that a strategy has devised to interrupt virus circulation, saying that next six months will be crucial.
The essence of this strategy, he added, is ruthless accountability, an honest re-assessment of security provision, strengthening functionality of provincial EOC and district polio control rooms and gearing up work further in the high risk union councils with the involvement of communities.
The commitment for polio eradication was now visible as a task force, under the chairmanship of Commissioner Karachi, has been notified and the need of the hour is to translate this commitment into a reality by interrupting virus transmission, he opined.
News source: Medical News Pakistan
