LAHORE: Punjab Minister for Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department Khwaja Imran Nazir said on Tuesday that Punjab is conducting its biggest-ever ‘catch-up’ activity from Oct 1 to 31 to ensure vaccination of all children up to five years of age against 12 infectious diseases, including polio.

Addressing the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) team at the start of the exercise titled “Big Catch-Up 2024” at the Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department, he said that for the first time a routine immunisation activity for children beyond two years has been started on such a large scale.

He said special arrangements were made to ensure vaccine availability for children in higher age group (up to five years) as the EPI provides routine vaccination till two years of age.

However, in the recent past many children missed their routine vaccine doses due to various reasons, mainly Covid pandemic, when lock down disrupted many routine services, including vaccination delivery, for a brief period.

These children, who missed essential vaccination, were exposed to the risk of fatal diseases, the minister said.

“Our technical experts, in consultation with the World Health Organisation (WHO), have developed a revised and updated schedule, wherein children between two to five years will be provided essential vaccinations,” he said.

He said besides the vaccination of children from higher age groups, all-out efforts would be made to reduce the number of un-immunised, under-immunised and zero-dose children.

Punjab Health Services Director General Dr Ilyas Gondal said the department had aligned Big Catch-Up (BCU) with a global initiative launched in April 2023 to cover immunisation gaps caused during the Covid-19 pandemic, restore global immunisation levels, and strengthen immunisation systems so that catch-up activities become an integral part of vaccination programmes.

He said this catch-up initiative would be instrumental in tracking the zero-dose and other children and address access and equity issues.

“The goal of the BCU is to reach and vaccinate all un-vaccinated and under-vaccinated children. We are grateful to the WHO and Unicef for their valuable support,” the DG said.

Health Services (EPI) Director Dr Mukhtar Ahmed said the programme had engaged 5,244 skilled vaccinators, as many team assistants and 10,488 social mobilisers, who would perform duties in the community outreach vaccination.

He said there were 621 supervisory staffers, including health chief executive officer (CEO-H), district health officers (DHOs-PS), deputy district health officers (DDHOs), EPI focal persons, across Punjab.

He said if parents miss any outreach session or social mobiliser’s visit, they must visit the nearest health facility, including teaching hospitals, DHQs, THQs, RHC, BHUs and fixed EPI centres for vaccination of their children.

In case of any query, the caregivers can contact the Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department Helpline 1033, the director added.

Published in Dawn, October 2nd, 2024