UNICEF document says trust deficit is to blame for an all-time low parent conversion rate. PHOTO: ONLINE/FILE
ISLAMABAD:
The nation’s largest health initiative is in tatters.
Inefficient awareness building strategies, coupled with targeted attacks on polio teams and distrust among the populace, have led to a sharp increase in the number of families that refuse the oral polio vaccine.
According to official, unreleased documents prepared by Unicef Pakistan, available with The Express Tribune, the all-time low conversion rate of parents refusing the polio vaccine has completely crippled the country’s largest public sector health initiative.
Suspicions abound, trust goes missing
High-ranking officials within the polio programme claim that the ‘dirty’ role played by Dr Shakeel Afridi and some international donor agencies has significantly contributed to an upsurge in refusals.
“The leaked Abbotabad Commission Report has confirmed that international donor agencies have other motives that are clearly beyond their mandate,” says an intelligence officer, requesting anonymity.
According to Sona Bari, the spokesperson for the Global Polio Eradication initiative at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, country representative Dr Ni’ma Abid addressed this issue publicly in March. “WHO has always strongly stated that public health interventions should not be used for any purpose other than the improvement of health,” Bari adds firmly.
Restoring faith
Millions of dollars have been spent by international donor agencies to restore the dented credibility of the programme. And yet, nothing seems to be working.
“Unicef appointed cricket star Shahid Afridi without even realizing that people that follow celebrities like Shahid Afridi do not refuse the polio vaccine in the first place,” mocked Maulana Tahir Ashrafi, a notable religious cleric of the Ulema Council.
The documents also mention the hundreds of highly paid Unicef communications and social mobilisation staffers, known as COMNet, that have been paralysed after the targeted attacks on polio teams.
“The role of social mobilisation is to build the right kind of linkages with communities, and opening doors to the right influencers and households is critical. But the security context will also need to facilitate COMNet presence in these areas,” the papers state.
A nosedive
The documents clearly illustrate that the number of parent refusals after the fatal attacks on polio teams has grown this year. “The high-risk districts of K-P, for example, have recently shown a rise in refusals,” the papers state.
Last year, however, the number of refusals saw a constant decrease, whereas the number of parents ‘converted’ climbed upwards.
“During 2012, refusals were brought down from 60,000 to only 47,000 by the end of the year,” said an Extended Program on Immunisation (EPI) official as he interpreted a slide, a part of the documents, for The Express Tribune.
Last week, a high ranking official of the polio programme while making a presentation to parliamentarians, created serious confusion amongst the media and international donor agencies by claiming that 172,622 refusals had been reported throughout the country. With this, he put the authenticity of the polio programme’s data under suspicion, as WHO had claimed during a presentation in April that the country had reported 70,000 refusals, whereas the PM Polio Cell had claimed last year that the country had reported 47,000 refusals.
An EPI official, vocal about the failings of the programme, said the poor communication strategies are to blame for discrepant data.
“Almost two decades down the road, and the polio programme is still unaware about the different reasons as to why parents actually refuse polio drops,” said the official.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 26th, 2013.
COMMENTS (15)
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@Islamist: oh please stop this ... COMNET people have miserably failed the polio programme. Coke and Pepsi is far better than COMNET as at least it is widely accepted and consumed by all walks of people including Taliban unlike the polio vaccine. COMNET is a money making enterprise and nothing else. You will see it soon one day when COMNET will also make a mega Scandal like Shakeel Afridi.
@unbelievable: it seems someone draws a monthly handsome salary from UNICEF.
Refusal to Polio vaccine has always been on religious grounds and with anti-american sentiment. But UNICEF and other donor agencies have wasted two decades promoting singers and cricket celebrity as polio ambassadors.
If you can't vaccinate your own people for something as onerous as Polio how are you going to tackle the tough stuff? Blaming the American's for your inability to inoculate your people is pathetic - but not as pathetic as your news coverage of Afridi which made it sound like his vaccinations where either harmful or fake which was blatantly false.
The only thing standing between Pakistan and stone age are the drones.
Polio sufferers need to be shown on the TV channels very widely in the lenght and breadth of the country everyday for a few months to show the effects of this disease thus spreading the knowledge of benefits of vaccination. The viewers should be told as to what awaits those who are not immunised.
If Pakistanis are banned from overseas travel, they will get the job done.,
@Realist: unicef is helping Govt of pakistan with this initiative, its a combined effort with technical support from unicef and who. Vaccination campaigns are solely run by Govt of Pakistan under the EPI program.
Come on. Are you seriously blaming it on the Americans now?
Let me remind you that India had eradicated it before Osama raid was done, but Pakistan had not. What were the reasons then?
India too faced problems in Muslim dominated areas, where the Mullahs used to tell the followers for some insane reason that don't get Polio drops. Same is happening in Pakistan and it has very little to do the the American raid(which is anyway a lie according to some in Pakistan).
well being part of unicef i agree with above figures, and the reason is lack of security for vaccinators. its a dilemma that vaccinators are killed and targeted during vaccination campaigns. How can you expect a vaccinator to perform fully when she is scared of being killed or injured. so more scared they are, less is their outreach and more refusals. its a simple equation
Well, Pakistan Government should start polio vaccination itself. Stop relying on international agencies. People don't trust UNICEF and the like and not the polio vaccine itself.
Whatever happens in this country that cripples the stability, no one is made accountable except few lower staff... The muk muka culture will never contribute anything but a strong will of policy makers is needed...
Probably the only way to get every ones attention in Pakistan to this Polio immunization problem is for Saudi Arabia to ban all Pakistanis from coming to SA for Haj due to possibility of spreading Polio there!!!
Its not the polio drops that people object to but the way they are administrated doorto door. I saw 7 different teams give drops to a child of six months in less than a month. Now the child is unable to respond to any stimulus. There is also bad vaccine around and neither the in or the govt is interested.