More polio cases

EDITORIAL: Poliovirus continues to survive in this country despite regular vaccination campaigns.

This past Saturday the Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication reported two new polio cases, taking this year’s tally to 39. Of these nearly half -– 20 — of children afflicted by this debilitating disease are in Balochistan, 12 in Sindh, five in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), and one each in Punjab and Islamabad Capital Territory.

Regarding Balochistan and KP, high incidence of polio, perhaps, is explainable to the extent that people from there and the neighbouring provinces of Afghanistan, where poliovirus type-1 (WPV1) is endemic, move across the border as a daily routine. But there is much more to it.

A press report has quoted a related official as saying that the fight against poliovirus had suffered throughout 2023 and early this year because immunisation campaigns in Balochistan and southern KP were either staggered or postponed due to the security issues. Indeed, inoculation drives in these provinces have faced violent resistance.

Scores of health workers and police personnel protecting them have been shot dead by religious extremists who claim it to be Western conspiracy to stop Muslim population from increasing by sterilising children. As a result, many health workers fearing for their own lives have been misreporting coverage data.

Too many children are left out. But the situation in other provinces is no less concerning. As the present report shows, Sindh has the second highest rate of WPV1 prevalence. The two latest cases have also surfaced in its Mirpurkhas and Sanghar districts. A couple of months ago, the virus was found in environmental samples taken from several districts of Punjab.

Following the latest reports, the Polio Eradication Programme has announced a new nationwide vaccination drive for October 28 to immunise more than 45 million children under the age of five. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister’s focal person on polio also pointed to “three quality” campaigns that starting from September are to last till December, and claimed that the WPV1 would be eliminated by June 2025. All this merits the question, why would the outcome be any different this time?

A rethink of the current ‘strategy’ is in order. The government needs to change its top-down approach. A major hindrance being community distrust, local level leaders — clerics or whoever they might be — must be encouraged to play a meaningful role to ensure every child is vaccinated and the virus banished from this country.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024