Polio team leaders meeting
By Hina Kiyani

Islamabad—Dr Khalifa Bile World Health Organization Representative has said Pakistan has made tremendous achievement since the launch of polio eradication initiative in 1994, with reduction of cases from several thousand per year to only 28 cases in 2005 and 23 in 2006.
He stated this while chairing two day 5th Polio Team Leaders Meeting arranged by WHO office in Pakistan held the meeting on polio eradication initiatives to discuss the current situation and develop an action plan to eradicate poliomyelitis from Pakistan here.
He thanked the government of Pakistan and the Federal Minister of health for per-sonal leadership of the programme. “All the national and international partners have to work together to eradicate the disease, he said.
The participants reviewed the current situation of polio eradication Initiative and ac-tion plans to eradicate the disease. The main reasons behind the delay in achieving the eradication target were studied thoroughly and found to be mainly due to the exten-sive movement from Afghanistan, inability to reach all children in security sensitive areas, conservative society especially in the tribal areas, not vaccinating very young children due to cultural barriers and low proportion of female vaccinators.
The main elements of the action plan are continue with high quality supplemental activities, national and sub national immunization days synchronized with Afghani-stan campaigns; strengthening of routine immunization activities; maintaining the momentum of political support and mobilize local resources to support the immuniza-tion activities, recruiting more lady health workers and strengthening the partnership with all the stakeholders to achieve the common goal of polio eradication.
The Director of the Expanded Programme on Immunization, the Special Advisor to the Regional director of Eastern Mediterranean Region Of WHO for poliomyelitis eradication, consultants from WHO Head Quarter in Geneva, Chief of Health and Nutrition Of UNICEF country office and International and national consultants working in polio eradication initiative in Pakistan participated in the meeting.