ISLAMABAD: The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) has announced that it has signed a $13.9 million agreement with the World Health Organisation (WHO) to provide support to the polio eradication programme in Pakistan.

Under the agreement, the UNOPS will provide human resource services for recruitment and management of over 550 polio workers of the WHO in the country.

The UNOPS Country Director for Pakistan, Mikko Lainejoki, said the organisation had a team of human resource experts who could help its partners in smalland large-scale operations.

He said the agreement reflected the spirit and practice of `delivering as one`.

The UNOPS provides cost-effective human resource management services, particularly in conflictand disaster-hit zones.

The services include advisory services, recruitment and pre-employment screening, contract administration and training.

The UNOPS also offers customised services to address unique needs and budgets of its partners.

Pakistan is one of onlythree countries in the world where polio remains endemic.

I N E F F E C T I V E METHODS: The Independent Monitoring Board, which assesses efficiency of polio campaigns around the world, will hold a meeting in London on Oct 5 and 6. The board comprises experts from different fields relevant to the work of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, and was established at the request of the World Health Assembly.

In its 11th report released after a meeting in Abu Dhabi in April, the board urged Pakistan to remove barriers to reaching children and discontinue sticking to tried and unimaginative solutions that had f aile d in the past.

`While most of Pakistan is free from polio, and has been so for some time, the challenge of eradicating polio from a small number of areas where it persists is formidable. In most of the country, children are being reliably vaccinated against polio. But in some areas, children are being persistently missed,` it says.

Meanwhile, the government has launched a nationwide polio campaign to vaccinate more than 35 million children in 163 districts of the country. About 200,000 polio workers are participating in the drive, duringwhich Vitamin A supplements will also be distributed.

The Prime Minister`s Focal Person on Pollo Eradication, Senator Ayesha Raza Farooq, said: `Our priority is to reach out to each and every child so that no child remains unvaccinated.

`Nine campaigns are planned from September 2015 to May 2016 and every campaign is critically important to stop transmission of poliovirus,` she added.

Pakistan currently accounts for most of the children paralysed by wild poliovirus this year (30), followed by Afghanistan (9). They are the only two countries in the world with wild poliovirus cases in 2015 --the lowest number of such countries in history.

Pakistan is positioned well to take advantage of the current `low season` for poliovirus transmission. It has set up emergency operation centres at federal and provincial level and is improving its ability to involve every level of the administration in the process of delivering vaccine to children.

The quality of the campaigns --whether missed children are given the opportunity to be vaccinated --will determine how swiftly the country can eradicate polio.