The Senate Standing Committee on Health has taken strong notice of the increase in Polio cases in different parts of the country, particularly in Sindh and NWFP, and has directed the Ministry of Health to take stringent steps to eradicate polio from the country so as to ensure the country becomes polio free by 2010.
The Committee met at Parliament House to discuss rapid increase in polio cases in Sindh. The members of the Committee pointed out that increase in cases of Polio in Sindh and NWFP was the result of poor mechanism and sub- standard campaign as the affected children were either not immunised or were given insufficient dozes.
They were of the view that a well-thought out mechanism is required to properly monitor the performance of the vaccinators and increase the outreach of vaccinators in the far-flung areas.
Senators Razina Alam Khan, Babar Khan Ghauri and other members suggested that vaccination teams should be given proper training to motivate the people particularly the parents to vaccinate their kids and the media be involved not only to create awareness about the ill-effects of the polio but also discourage negative propaganda against the polio vaccine. The members of the committee described the measures taken as insufficient and called for concerted efforts to get rid of the disease.
While discussing the issue of involvement of staff in the reuse of syringes by filling bogus medicines at Cardio Vascular Hospital in Karachi, the Committee directed Director General Health to provide a detailed report of the action taken against those involved in playing with lives of the innocent people on the one hand and earning bad name to a prestigious institute of the country.
The Committee, while discussing the other agenda item directed the health officials to provide details of the pending cases of promotions at Jinnah Post Graduate Medical College to the Committee at the earliest so that the Committee could formulate its recommendations to bring about improvement.
Earlier, DG Health gave a detailed presentation on the steps taken to eradicate polio from the country. He said as a result of steps taken by the Government significant reduction in polio cases has taken place in the country ie from 30,000 in 1994 to only 32 in 2007 and 16 during the current year.
He informed that 82 per cent districts of the country are polio free for the last 8 years. He said that a special meeting of the International Experts on Polio eradication was convened to take stock of the polio situation in Sindh and recommendations were given to improve the polio campaign quality in Sindh with a view to ensure proper vaccination and to bring inaccessible areas in the campaign's net.
Regarding promotion and better facilities to the paramedics, the DG said that the Ministry is working on the health workers career reforms and input has been sought from the Provinces to ensure better facilities to health workers and bring improvements in medical profession. The Committee decided to visit various hospitals working under the Federal Government to ensure better health facilities to the people.
The meeting was attended by Senators Razina Alam Khan, Muhammad Ghufran Khan, Babar Khan Ghauri, Syed Javed Ali Shah, Dr Kausar Firdaus, Abdul Rasheed and Professor Sajid Mir. Secretary Ministry of Health and senior officials of the Ministry were also present.
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