This is the seventh reported case across the country and the first from the tribal belt this year. PHOTO: FILE
The first case of polio was reported in North Waziristan Agency (NWA) on Friday since the Taliban imposed a ban on the entry of vaccination teams in the region in June last year.
On June 16, 2012, Hafiz Gul Bahadur distributed pamphlets in the agency saying no anti-polio team would be allowed in the region unless drone strikes were stopped. He maintained that, while polio infects one person, drone strikes can kill hundreds of innocent people including women and children.
Mullah Nazir followed suit, accusing the US of deploying spies. He said those who would violate the orders and administer vaccines to their children would be dealt with severely. Since then, no anti-polio drive was carried out in North or South Waziristan.
The affected child, one-year-old Arifa, belongs to Mir Ali tehsil in NWA. This is the seventh reported case across the country and the first from the tribal belt this year. According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), the child received no polio drops due to the ban on polio vaccinations imposed by the Taliban.
“I was unofficially told about the emergence of a new case, but it has not officially been communicated to us as yet and I will ask the polio control room [about it],” said Director General Health Fata Fawad Khan. He refused to further comment on the matter.
According to the World Health Organization, a total of 1.87 million children across the country missed out anti-polio drops in the last National Immunization Days from April 15 to 17. The total target population for the last campaign in Fata was 1.3 million, out of which 0.52 million children were vaccinated.
According to the Fata health department, 0.2 million children missed out on vaccines in North and South Waziristan due to the ban. The prime minister’s focal person on polio eradication Shehnaz Wazir Ali earlier asked the then K-P governor Masood Kausar to use his influence to convince the Taliban to allow anti-polio teams to administer vaccines, but little headway was made in the following negotiations.
Of the six other cases reported in the country, three are from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), one from Punjab and two from Sindh. Last year, the country reported 58 cases, with K-P and Fata topping the list with 27 and 20 cases, respectively.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 4th, 2013.
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Why cancer patients have increased so much in Pakistan? Why Psychological disorders are on the rise? Why number of divorces are being increased day by day? Why people are committing suicides?
Don't we have other things to research and ponder in Pakistan than polio cases only? May be we would when another vaccine would start arriving Pakistan in containers.