Karachi December 11, Commissioner of Karachi, Syed Hassan Naqvi, met with the head and members of the Private Hospitals and Clinics Association and hospital representatives to extend the support to the Commissioner Karachi to strengthen the polio eradication efforts. The private hospitals will assist the administration by collecting data on children vaccinated in their facilities and on parents, and by helping to identify and follow up on missed children, and supporting to achieve the targets of vaccination. On Thursday, Commissioner Naqvi convened a meeting with officials of the Private Hospitals Association and the management and owners of various private hospitals, where it was mutually decided that private hospitals would record the data of children vaccinated in their facilities and share it with the administration. Dr. Junaid Ali Shah, President of the Private Hospital and Clinic Association, along with other representatives, assured the provision of polio vaccination data and pledged full cooperation in all anti?polio efforts. The Commissioner noted that the administration faces difficulties in obtaining vaccination data from private hospitals, and that this missing data hampers analysis of the polio vaccination target, hence requiring hospital cooperation. He urged private hospitals to play their role in the national effort to eradicate polio, and Dr. Shah reaffirmed that the Association and its members would fully support the government and administration in this fight. The Commissioner added that some parents prefer to have their children vaccinated in private hospitals, believing it to be safer, and that such vaccinations are part of the anti?polio drive, but must be included in the data to help the administration assess the campaign’s progress. He advised doctors to ask incoming patients whether a polio team has visited their home and whether the children have received polio drops, and to clarify any doubts about vaccines, explaining that these two questions will guide parents and help address their concerns. Participants were briefed on maintaining the cold chain for polio vaccines; saying that OPV is being stored and transported at +2?°C to +8?°C, with special teams monitoring temperature continuously to ensure vaccine safety. The Emergency Operations Centre coordinator Shahzad Gul Memon and the Anti?Polio Coordinator for Karachi, Saud Yaqoob, updated the meeting on the polio campaign details and vaccination procedures.
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