Immunisation campaign: Arrival of 6,000 children sets polio drive in motion

KARACHI:

Around 6,000 children have reached the city’s ‘high-risk’ areas in terms of the polio virus, setting in motion a four-day immunisation campaign.

The campaign will start on July 5 and will last till July 8, and will be carried out in 34 union councils of the city, The Express Tribune learnt on Wednesday. Seven polio cases have been detected in the last six months in the city and the health officials said that all of the victims hail from the northern parts of the country.

“Yes, the drive is being launched in targeted areas,” confirmed the provincial head of the Extended Programme on Immunisation (EPI), Dr Mazhar Khamisani. The second part of the campaign will be launched from July 17 to July 20, he added.



Dr Khamisani, like other officials in the government, is unaware of the exact number of families who have come down from Waziristan and where they are living. Most of these families have sought shelter with their relatives, he explained. “The relatives of the IDPs are already residing in the most-sensitive areas,” he said. “They need polio drops immediately.” Dr Khamisani estimated that around 6,000 children have arrived in the city, while other officials believed the number could be double.

The EPI officials and the polio workers have, however, yet to receive any orders from the provincial government on what steps to take in the wake of the incoming refugees. An official of the EPI said that neither the federal government nor the provincial government has directed them to launch the campaign for the children coming from Waziristan.

“Our workers are already performing their jobs well at all the entry points,” claimed Dr Khamisani. The polio workers have already been deployed at railway stations, toll plazas and bus stops, he said, adding that there are very few children who could have crossed the border without being administered the two drops of the polio vaccine.

Better management

The IDPs are not being accommodated in camps and the situation can spiral out of control if the IDPs continue to move around different parts of the city, feared some health experts. The movement of children carrying the virus to other parts of the province is also a cause of concern for the official.

“Our children are at higher risk now,” claimed a UC medical officer on polio, Dr Muhammad Ali Thalho. “The virus would not easily transmit to other children if the children from Waziristan don’t move.” Dr Thalho felt the success of this special polio campaign will be limited. “They [children] are coming on a daily basis and there is no mechanism to keep a check on them,” he said.

Dr Thalho also believed that it would be not possible for polio workers to target all the children in these highly sensitive areas. “Polio workers won’t enter these areas unless complete security is provided,” he pointed out. Meanwhile, the health officials have collected an estimate of the number of children in areas where the IDP families have reportedly settled. The polio workers in different areas have made a list of children who ‘seem like guests’ from up North, said one worker.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 3^rd, 2014.