One of the issues faced by the programme leading to low coverage is lack of mobility of vaccinators. To facilitate and overcome this, WHO Pakistan has procured 1500 motorcycles for distribution among vaccinators working in the EPI programme throughout the country. These were procured with a grant received from GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance. The 1500 motorbikes will be distributed as follows: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (585), Punjab (150), Balochistan (340), Sindh (380) and 15 each for Azad Jammu and Kashmir (15), Federally Administered Tribal Areas (15) and Gilgit Baltistan (15). The distribution of bikes was conducted in full consultation with the national and provincial EPI programme.
The motorcycles are intended to be used by vaccinators to improve their mobility in order that they can provide outreach and mobile vaccination services. This will enable them to reach more isolated and hard-to-reach communities and thus will improve equity in immunization coverage. To ensure that the vehicles are used soley for the purpose of EPI vaccinations, the EPI logo has been added to the motorbikes.
