Next polio campaign from March 7

The Punjab government would follow zero tolerance policy in the next anti-polio campaign, which will be kicked off from 7th March. Secretary Health Punjab Fawad Hassan Fawad, while addressing District Health Officers Conference, said that the next anti-polio campaign will be a test case for the District Officers of Health (DOH) and the officers who would show bad performance vis-à-vis achieving set targets would have to face action.
He said that bad performance of the officers would not be acceptable at the cost of children's sufferings. Special Secretary Health Wasim Mukhtar, DG Health Dr Muhammad Aslam Chaudhry, Director HMIS, Dr Anwar Janjua, Director EPI Dr Arshad Iqbal Dar, Director Health CDC Dr Mubashar Malik, Medical Officers of WHO Dr Debera, Provincial Co-ordinator MNCH Programme Dr Sabia Khursheed, Co-ordinator of FP & PHC Dr Akhtar Rasheed and other officers attended the conference.
The conference reviewed the progress of the various ongoing programmes including Mother, Neonatal & Child Health (MNCH), FP & PHC, EPI, CDC and AIDS Control Programme at district level and evaluated the performance of the District Officers Health accordingly.
Secretary Health took serious notice of unauthorised use of vehicles of various health programmes by the officers of other departments at district level and directed immediate withdrawal of such vehicles and report to the department. He maintained that the performance of health programmes at district level would not be affected at any cost. He also directed that the officials of government departments like education, revenue, civil defence should be inducted in anti-polio campaign rather than the volunteers.
Secretary Health also directed that all the motorcycles of Extended Programme of Immunisation (EPI) must immediately be got back from the unauthorised officials of Health Department and immediately be given to the vaccinators and a list of the officials also be furnished to his office within a week.
Fawad Hassan Fawad directed the officers that all the payments to the officials participating in anti-polio campaign should be made through cheques. He directed that during anti-polio campaign, the counters for administering polio drops to the children should be established at the front of the government hospitals to facilitate the parents for this purpose.