‘Special polio immunisation programme’ likely to be postponed

Kathmandu / Feb 12: A ‘special polio immunisation programme’ announced by the government for 15 districts is likely to be postponed due to protests of health professionals. Earlier, the programme was scheduled for coming February 18-19.

Health professionals across the country are on a warpath, demanding the enforcement of the Health Act and it is almost sure that the immunisation drive would be postponed, according to Child Health Division’s immunisation section programme officer Basanta Shrestha.

We see no possibility of launching the programme on the scheduled date even if agitating health professional returned to work by a couple of days. The new schedule for the programme would be announced later.

The government has a target of administering polio drops to some 1.69 million under five during a special campaign. Though Nepal had got the certificate of polio eradication in 2010, the decision to organise a special drive was taken bearing in mind its high risk of its reoccurrence in the country as the cases of this acute viral disease are still in existence in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The UNICEF is to support the programme as it is providing vaccines. Likewise, the World Health Organisation (WHO) is financing Rs 15 million to the programme. The WHO has set a target of eradicating this disease from the world in 2018, the Division said.

The programme covers Sunsari, Saptari, Siraha, Dhanusha, Mahottari, Rautahat, Parsa, Bara, Kapilvastu, Banke, Bardiya, Kailali, Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur districts. RSS