This is an alarming situation for us and we have to speed up the immunisation campaign.
KARACHI: It is possible to achieve the status of a polio-free country if we sincerely commit ourselves to address the hurdles of polio eradication.
The most important of these are the unstable political condition of our country, insecurity of polio vaccinators, irregular immunisation programmes, prevalence of rumours related to the polio vaccine and Taliban ‘story’ in rural areas. We need to address these issues if we really want to permanently scratch-out this virus from our country.
Recently, the Punjab Health Department identified 73 Union Councils in Lahore where the wild polio virus is present. Already, 58 cases of polio virus have been reported from January to April this year as compared to eight cases which had been reported in the same period last year.
This is an alarming situation for us and we have to speed up the immunisation campaign, especially in risky areas and other initiatives like the one taken by Expanded Program on Immunisation, Punjab, which recently launched a documentary to highlight the challenges involved in the vaccination of children in Pakistan and has documented various cases in which vaccination has saved many children from polio.
These steps are crucial for us if we want to remove Pakistan’s name from the list of the world’s three countries — the other two are Afghanistan and Nigeria — where polio is still endemic.
Aniqa Zainab
Published in The Express Tribune, May 7th, 2014.
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