The UNICEF and World Health Organisation have urged political parties to make the National Immunisation Day (NID) on Saturday a success.
The appeal came in view of the BNP announcing a fresh blockade beginning 6am on Saturday after a day’s respite.In a joint statement the two UN bodies called for ensuring the children in the country had ‘full access’ to immunisation efforts.
The Health Secretary MN Neazuddin earlier said Bangladesh would immunise about 22 million children below five years of age with oral polio vaccines to work towards a polio-free country on Saturday.
It will be the 21st campaign of its kind, but worries persist over the possible adverse impact of the Opposition blockade on the immunisation campaign.
Health workers and volunteers will feed the vaccine to the target group of children from at least 140,000 locations across Bangladesh.
Mobile centres will be in place so that children travelling with parents do not miss out on the vaccine.
UNICEF Bangladesh Representative Pascal Villeneuve in the joint statement urged “all political parties to make this day a success” by keeping the upcoming NID outside the purview of agitations in the “the greater interest of the children of Bangladesh,”
He said full access to children “must be protected and preserved” so that Bangladesh can continue “to make history by keeping the scourge of polio away from its children”.
He said about 95 percent of targeted children were usually reached during NIDs — “an excellent track record”, he observed.
“However, we need to do more to ensure that no child is left behind, particularly those living in hard-to-reach locations and (belonged to) deprived communities”.
WHO Representative Thushara Fernando joined Villeneuve in urging all political parties to ensure that work of thousands of health workers and community volunteers is not hindered.
“….District and Upazila health managers would send vaccine and logistics to immunisation centres on time and children from all communities would be brought to the immunisation centres to get polio drops”.
He said Bangladesh was ‘a model’ in South Asian Region for polio eradication due “to the strong commitments from all successive governments since 1995”.
“The support of all stakeholders is even more important now to ensure future generations live in a Polio Free environment”.
Government’s EPI programme spearheads the campaign that follows a four day home search by mobile teams to ensure none is left out.
UNICEF and WHO said polio cases began to decline in Bangladesh after 1986 when the NID started.
Before that, an estimated 11,500 children were affected by polio every year.
Bangladesh has remained polio free since 2006.-bdnews24.com
