Evaluation of Immunization Coverage in the Rural Area of Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Abstract

Background: In children, the leading cause of morbidity and mortality is infectious disease. Immunization is one of the most cost-effective methods for child survival. The purpose of the survey is to assess access and coverage of immunizations in the rural areas of the District Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Methods: A cross‑sectional study was conducted in a rural population area of District Peshawar from February 2016 to April 2016 using the WHO’s 30 cluster sampling method for evaluation of immunization coverage. Results: A total of 390 children aged 12-23 months were included in the study. It was found that 67.94% of the children were fully immunized against vaccine-preventable diseases. Thirty percent of the children were partially immunized; the percentage of unimmunized children was 2.06%. Immunization cards were issued to and available with 58.8% of the subjects. The most common cause of partial immunization was a lack of information regarding vaccinations (27%). Immunization against measles was found to be low (67%). Those using private facilities were more likely to be completely immunized as compared to government facilities. Conclusions: Immunization coverage in our survey was 68%. Sustained efforts are required to achieve universal coverage of immunization. Significant interventions are required, especially in areas that are more rural and less educated.

Eradicating polio in Pakistan: a systematic review of programs and policies

“…Demographic, geopolitical, and religious concerns, which were more commonly cited in the literature, were often characterized in the literature as rumors about polio vaccination. Demographic concerns were focused on the potential fertility impacts of the polio vaccine on increasing sterility [27,31,35,36,[38][39][40][41]44,[47][48][49]. Closely related to demographic concerns were geopolitical anxieties about the true motive underlying the vaccine [26,40,44,49].…”

“…Limited knowledge of immunization schedules and the need for multiple polio vaccinations was highlighted by several studies as leading to incomplete polio vaccination [32,33,42,45,52,54]. Conversely, caregiver's awareness of the benefits of polio vaccination for their children was a strong facilitator of vaccination [32,35,42,47,48,56].…”

“…Many studies described concerns related to cold chain maintenance [28,29,34,41,45-48,58,67,68] due to noncompliance [45,58], maintenance of cooling units [45,46,67,68], and loadshedding [46][47][48]. Insufficient vaccine supplies and delays in receiving vaccines hindered the effectiveness of polio eradication activities [29,32,33,35,68].…”

“…Physical proximity and access to health facility was highlighted as a key facilitator of polio vaccination [40,42]. Families that live far away from EPI centers often cited that this was one of their reasons for refusing immunization [25,30,31,35,36,42,45,47,48,52,54,67]. Constraints to caregivers time and schedules also acted as a barrier to vaccinating their children [25,28,30,32,35,42,45,47,48,54].…”

Prevalence of Migraine and its associated factors among medical students of Bangladesh: A cross sectional study

“…A study conducted in neighboring India reported somewhat similar statistics (prevalence of migraine among medical students 14%) (9). However some other studies reported a comparatively higher prevalence of migraine among this population group of South East Asian region such as 30% in India (10), 38% in Pakistan (11), and 35% in Nepal (12). In the studies conducted in different countries like Brazil (12%) (34), Nigeria (14%) (35), Turkey (13%) (36), and Oman (12%) reported slightly lower prevalence of migraine compared to .…”