ISLAMABAD: Pakistan army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa has said the polio immunization drive in the country will restart soon.
During a telephonic conversation with billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates on Wednesday, Gen Bajwa said that despite the coronavirus crisis, “Pakistan Army in support of Govt’s efforts has already made preparations to restart anti polio campaign in coming weeks,” the military’s media wing said in a statement.
“Gates appreciated Pakistan Army’s help in enabling the campaign through provision of security, monitoring and bridging of capacity gaps,” the statement added.
The WHO and its partners decided late March this year to suspend all anti-polio activities including national vaccination campaigns and house-to-house surveillance “to avoid placing communities and frontline workers at unnecessary risk” during the pandemic, the world body had announced in a statement.
The move led to around 40 million Pakistani children missing polio drops in 2020 as the nationwide vaccination program was suspended in April due to coronavirus outbreak, officials from the country’s polio eradication center and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) earlier told Arab News.
“We planned to vaccinate 40 million children under the age of five during our nationwide immunization campaign in April, which could not take place due to the COVID-19 emergency,” said Rana Muhammad Safdar, national coordinator of the Emergency Operation Center for Polio Eradication. He added that the vaccination program had been suspended until May 31.
Gen Bajwa informed Gates that “health care workers who played the most important part in polio drive also acted as the front-line defense against COVID-19,” under the current situation.
The two also discussed various challenges arising in the wake face of current and future pandemic threats and efforts to enhance the resilience of population through education, flexible health care management and use of technology, according to the official handout.
According to data from Pakistan Polio Eradication Program (PPEP), 147 polio cases were reported in Pakistan in 2019 and 50 in 2020 alone.
Polio is still endemic in only two countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the disease has not been eliminated.
The PPEP has been fighting since 1994 to end the crippling polio virus from the country. The national drive is supported by around 260,000 polio vaccinators, reportedly the largest surveillance network in the world, quality data collection and analysis, advanced laboratories supervised by epidemiologists and local and international public health experts, the government website reads.