‘Polio networks bolster Covid response in WHO’s SE Asia Region’

New Delhi, Oct 23 : Applying strategies from the polio eradication programme, the polio networks in WHO’s South-East Asia Region are helping strengthen core public health response measures to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, a WHO official said on Friday.
“Within weeks of the Covid-19 outbreak, the integrated surveillance and immunisation networks in five polio priority countries of the region were re-purposed to support preparedness and response. Working among the most vulnerable population and areas, these networks are helping health authorities to detect, test, track, isolate and even prepare hospitals to provide adequate and timely treatment,” said Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia.
From assisting coordination at the national and sub-national levels, to training and building capacities for laboratory and other health workers for detecting cases, tracing contacts, and assessing public perceptions to hospital readiness and preparedness, the WHO’s polio surveillance networks in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Myanmar and Nepal, are supporting with strategies and initiatives, refined over the years and which helped the region achieve polio-free certification in March 2014.
Using polio micro-plans, the surveillance medical officers’ team in India’s Uttar Pradesh – the most populous state in the country – coordinated with the state government for a massive initiative of house-to-house surveillance to identify people with symptoms of influenza-like illness and co-morbidities, covering 208 million people across all 75 districts in the state.
The exercise conducted twice in the last three months, helped identify over 100,000 people with symptoms each time, who were then followed up and tested for Covid-19, she said, citing this as the many examples of the polio network’s support in India.
In Bangladesh, the polio surveillance network has trained 17,000 health workers and laboratory staff. It is also supporting training in infection prevention and control measures which will cover over 26,500 health workers across all districts and city corporations by the month-end.