The meeting was attended by Sindh Health Minister Dr. Azra Pechuho, Chief Secretary Mumtaz Shah, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Sajid Jamal Abro, Provincial Secretaries Education, Finance, Health, Local government, Divisional Commissioners, representatives of federal government, USAID, UNICEF, WHO, Bill & Milanda Gates and other concerned.
The CM was informed that in Sindh all six districts of Karachi are still classified as `Tier 1' core reservoir. The CM said that it was something to be worried of but "We will take drastic measures with proper planning and focus," he said.
It was pointed out that in 2019 no polio case has been reported from Sindh and last year one polio case was reported from Gadap area of the metropolis.
He was informed that in Karachi samples were taken from 11 sites every month.
In January 2019, Gadap all three sites, Sohrab Goth, Khamiso Goth, Machhar Colony, Baldia, SITE and Saddar town were declared positive.
In rural areas of Sindh, samples were taken from six sites, results of three received out of which one from Sukkur declared positive. He was told that the epidemiological situation in Karachi was deteriorating as the virus from six sites became positive and negative from four and one was pending in Karachi.
The campaign quality has further improved, eradication levels are still not consistently achieved because of high number of missed children due to refusals.
Murad Shah said that after the outbreak in three districts of lower Sindh - Badin, Thatta, Sujawal, between September to December 2016, were provided with significant human resources, monitoring and supervision system which resulted in subsequent improvement in performance quality.
In Northern Sindh, all polio eradication activities were well managed. Similarly, "We have to work hard in Karachi and make it sustainable," the chief minister said.
It was noted that routine immunization need to be intensified further because it still leaves too many young children without immunity against polio. Large efforts have been made together with the EPI programme to improve the situation, progress remains to be guarded.
Pre-campaign activities of large scale measles campaign were being jointly conducted in entire province by EOC and EPI. Giving presentation to Sindh Chief Minister, Provincial Coordinator EOC Umer Farooque Bullo said that post-Campaign Monitoring (PCM) has revealed that 96 percent children have been vaccinated from September 2018 to January 2019.
He disclosed that in January 2019 88472 children were not at home while 86863 children refused to take the vaccine. On that the chief minister expressed displeasure and said that out of 7.3 million children, 175,00 were missed (refusals and not present at home) which was not a big deal but even then we could not tolerate this refusal.
He directed the chief secretary to take drastic measures so that nobody could dare to refuse to immunize his child. The World Bank representatives appreciated the performance of the Sindh government saying that the chief minister was holding regular meetings, therefore the divisional and district administration was taking effective part in the campaign. This has made a great difference and today no case has been reported.
The chief minister said that continuous positive environmental samples and community resistance to polio vaccine (refusal) were big challenges. He directed the Inspector General of Police Sindh to provide adequate security to the polio teams moving from one place to another for vaccination.