Bangladesh is set to observe the 21st National Immunization Day (NID) programmes across the country on Saturday, with health workers and volunteers from the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) aiming to provide polio vaccines to 22 million children aged up to 59 months.
Dr Tajul Islam Bari, programme manager of the Expanded Program of Immunization (EPI) told the Dhaka Tribune that Bangladesh had remained a polio-free country since November 22, 2006.
However, the World Health Organisation (WHO) required all the member nations of the South East Asia Regional Organisation (Searo) –to which Bangladesh was a member – to be free of polio patients for at least three years before the countries could be eligible for polio-free status.
As a polio patient was found in India’s West Bengal in January 2011, the certificate got delayed; but Dr Bari expressed hopes that Bangladesh would achieve polio-free status in February next year.
According to a WHO report, cases of polio have decreased by over 99% since 1988.
Compared to 350,000 polio patients detected worldwide in 1988, the number came down to only 650 in 2011 as results of combined global efforts to eradicate the disease.
In 2012, only three countries were polio-endemic: Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria.
Meanwhile, sources said the cost for National Immunization Day was around Tk850m, with a total 26,600 health workers active in the field level. Among them, 21,000 were health assistants (HA), 4,200 assistant health inspectors (AHI) and 1,400 health inspectors (HI).
The health workers in the field level of the DGHS had been contributing a lot behind the success of health sector in the last four decades including the EPI, and the reduction of child and maternal and tuberculosis-related deaths.
An investigation by the Dhaka Tribune revealed that the HA, the AHI and the HIs respectively received only Tk50, Tk100 and Tk160 as travel allowance every month.
Seeking anonymity, several field workers expressed their discontent, saying despite millions spent in the health sector, the field workers who were the heart of the sector continue to be ignored.
The field workers’ responsibilities included regular immunization, Directly Observed Treatment Service (DOTS) of tuberculosis patients, and management of diarrheal, arsenic, malarial and other patients almost every day, they said.
Sources said the DGHS recruited volunteers for NID, who each received Tk30, but none of the field worker would receive any incentive allowance on the NID although their mobile teams had to carry out a four-day post-NID immunization programme in order to ensure that no child was left out.
Harun-or-Rashid, president of Bangladesh Health Department Employees Association, said thousands of field workers were frustrated at the situation.
He informed that after more than 15 years, the health ministry had given primary approval to increase travel allowance to Tk150, Tk300 and Tk360 for the HA, AHI and HI respectively. He also informed that the present pay scale was also under the process of change.
