A three-day consultative workshop on Estimates of Sub-National Immunization Coverages (ESNIC) began today in Islamabad, marking a coordinated effort to improve Immunization Estimates across Pakistan through stronger data use and federal-provincial collaboration.
Dr. Soofia Yunus, Director General of the Federal Directorate of Immunization, opened the workshop as chief guest and delivered welcome remarks emphasizing the need for data-driven decision making, robust federal-provincial coordination, and standardized methodologies to raise immunization coverage and set realistic EPI targets.
The technical facilitation is led by Dr. Carolina Danavaro, Scientist EPI at WHO, together with Mr. Yoann, System Analyst, and other senior WHO experts who will guide participants on global methodologies, triangulation approaches, and approaches to sub-national coverage estimation aimed at improving the reliability of Immunization Estimates.
Dr. Xia Wei, WHO EPI Team Lead, highlighted the value of collaborative learning and welcomed representatives from all provincial and area EPIs, noting that participation of programme managers is essential to build consensus, ownership and sustainable improvements in immunization planning nationwide.
Dr. Khalid Nawaz from UNICEF underscored UNICEF’s commitment to the consultative process and stressed the importance of maximizing UNICEF inputs to ensure efforts reach every child across Pakistan.
With federal and provincial EPI teams working alongside WHO and UNICEF, the ESNIC workshop represents a practical step toward strengthening evidence-based immunization planning, improving Immunization Estimates at sub-national levels, and aligning programmes to achieve measurable coverage gains.
