Follow-up drive: Refusals drop from 33,000 to 24,037

PESHAWAR:

As the latest drive of Sehat ka Ittehad came to an end on Wednesday, more than 33,000 people in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa had refused to administer polio drops to their children. However, by Thursday refusals had dropped to 24,037, aided by supplementary visits by vaccination teams and the fear of arrest.

According to data available with The Express Tribune, during the three-day short interval additional dose drive, the highest number of refusals was recorded from Peshawar district; 13,436 parents did not allow vaccinators to give the drops to their children.

The aim of the drive was to vaccinate 2.7 million children in 21 districts of K-P and the teams succeeded in reaching 97% of them, 2.6 million.



However, refusals and unavailability led to 85,545 children missing the crucial drops. Peshawar led the count of children who missed vaccination with 13,436 refusals and 34,083 unavailable children. In Abbottabad, 30,154 children were immunised, with five refusals and 670 unavailable children. A total of 6,534 children missed the drops in Bannu, including 4,482 refusals. No refusals were reported from Buner and only 310 were missed due to not being available.

Moreover, in Charsadda 5,097 children missed out on the vaccine as 1,319 were refusal cases while the remaining were children not at home. Chitral’s residents did not refuse the drops and 959 children were vaccinated while only nine missed out. A total of 5,581 children missed the vaccine in DI Khan, including 407 refusals.

Lower Dir residents also cooperated with vaccination teams and no refusals were reported from the district, however, 67 children did miss out because of not being home. Although, Karak boasts of the highest literacy rate in the province, teams were unable to convince 38 families to let their children be vaccinated.

No refusals were reported from Kohistan and 9,055 children were vaccinated without a hurdle, while only nine children were unavailable. In Lakki Marwat, 4,181 children missed the drops, including 1,732 whose parents refused. No refusals were reported from Malakand. The K-P government, however, claimed to have achieved its targets in a handout issued on Friday. It read, “100% targets have been achieved” in Abbottabad, Buner, Charsadda, Chitral, DI Khan, Lower Dir, Haripur, Kohistan, Lakki Marwat, Hangu and Nowshera, while special catch-up activities are in progress to achieve the rest of the targets. Data for Torghar district had been delayed due to a fault, stated the handout.   

“We will carry on the follow-up campaign until we inoculate every single child,” a K-P health department official told The Express Tribune. He added by the follow-up drive on Thursday, the number of children missed had dropped from 170,000 to 85,545 with 24,037 refusals.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 7^th, 2015.