KARACHI: Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Pechuho held a meeting on Tuesday with experts and of ficials to discuss ways to effectively engage private providers in immunisation and other areas of preventive healthcare.

The meeting was attended by Aga Khan University`s senior project lead Dr Shehla Zaidi, other health experts associated with the university, health secretary Zulfiqar Shah and parliamentary health secretary Qasim Siraj Soomro.

Talking about the benefits of engaging the private providers, Dr Zaidi explained that they could administer vaccine after business hours and there was more public trust towards the private providers as well, so their target base was wider.

About the immunisation project being implemented by the AKU in collaboration with government assistance in the eight high-risk union councils (UCs) of the city, she said it would of fer sustainable services since the varsity had that project.

Dr Zaidi informed the meeting that the staff involved in the care of newborns would be registered and provided training under the project by the Extended Programme for Immunization (EPI) in order to ensure birth dose vaccines to newborns and their follow-up visits by parents to health f acilities.

Sharing her concerns, Health Minister Dr Azra Pechuho said that bringing all birthing stations under immunisation coverage was the government`s priority goal and that the department needed external support in hiring and training more vaccinators, though it could provide the vaccinesfree ofcost.

`The EPI officials are working on extending their hours so as to better accommodate the working population that may not be able to access the health centres before 5pm,` she said.

The minister also spoke about the gaps in communication and counselling and emphasised that this area needed to be more focused.

`Parents must be informed what the vaccine is for and what its side ef fects can be. There must be proper counselling and feedback should be taken from the parents so that reasons for refusal could be properly registered and officials are able to make their strategies accordingly, she noted, adding that effective counselling would ensure that parents return for follow-up vaccines for their children.

It might be recalled that the Sindh EPI had signed an memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the AKU in March this year, targeting hotspots of immunisation refusals in eight UCs of Karachi to increase zero-dose vaccination provided at birth as well as Penta 3 vaccination in children under six months, which is a marker of complete vaccination in children under six months.