LAHORE: The Punjab government has appointed the new head of the Polio Programme & Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) in response to reports of an intensifying poliovirus situation in several districts.
Adeel Tasawar is currently serving in the primary and secondary healthcare departments in a variety of capacities, including head of the strengthening of development wing, project director of the Project Management Unity (PMU), and additional secretary development & finance.
According to a source familiar with the situation, Mr. Tasawar has been selected as the program coordinator in response to the suggestions made by Secretary of the Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department Nadia Saqib.
He stated that a six-year-old male child from Chakwal was reported to be carrying the virus in August of this year, marking a significant setback in the province’s fight against the crippling disease. Punjab also reported its first case of poliovirus in four years. The last reported case in Punjab occurred in 2020.
In a similar vein, he asserted, environment samples tested positive for wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) in a number of cities, including Lahore, Rawalpindi, Attock, Mianwali, and Bahawalpur. This puts the health of hundreds of thousands of children under the age of five in the province’s neighboring districts in jeopardy.
The higher authorities expressed their total dissatisfaction with the performance of the polio program officers when environmental samples were discovered in a number of Punjab province districts in a single year.
The official stated that the program was in the news because it consistently missed thousands of children during each polio drop campaign.
The spokesperson said in a statement that Adeel Tasawar, Punjab’s new head of the polio program and EOC coordinator, reiterated his commitment to eradicating polio. He said that the commitment of the province’s top leadership, including Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department Secretary Nadia Squib, who held daily campaign reviews, demonstrated that polio eradication was the top priority of the government.
Mr. Tasawar raised the alarm that children in Punjab were at risk of spreading imported viruses, which could not be tolerated at any cost. He emphasized that the results of genomic sequencing suggested that the virus was associated with Afghanistan and other endemic regions. The EOC coordinator stated that more than 23 million children had been vaccinated up until the sixth day of the campaign as final data continued to pour in on Sunday.
Over 2.2 million children in Lahore were vaccinated on the sixth day of the campaign, placing it first on the list of most vaccinated cities. Faisalabad and Rahim Yar Khan were next, with over 1.5 million and 1.1 million vaccinations, respectively.
On October 28, a nationwide campaign aimed at 23.3 million children was launched throughout Punjab. In major districts like Lahore, Rawalpindi, and Faisalabad, the campaign lasted for seven days.
The third and final national polio immunization campaign of the year concluded on Sunday in Punjab, according to the polio program’s spokesperson. He stated that on the final day of the campaign, the polio teams vaccinated thousands of “missed children” to prevent the spread of the poliovirus throughout the province.
The polio campaign in Punjab was finished on Friday in 33 districts, with the exception of Lahore, Rawalpindi, and Faisalabad, where it was finished on Sunday.
Over 200,000 teams were seen rushing to houses marked as having “not-available” children in their respective areas.
