Areas in Khyber, NWA, Orakzai among the inaccessible 5%

Officials confident children there can be reached with help of army

PESHAWAR: Areas in North Waziristan, Orakzai and Khyber agencies are the elusive 5% which prevent 100% polio vaccination coverage. According to a FATA Secretariat official, “95% of the [tribal] areas” are accessible.

The polio teams are now able to reach children below five years of age in war-ravaged agencies, a senior official told The Express Tribune. However, he added people in some areas of the three agencies—amounting to 5% of the tribal belt—were still putting up a resistance. This, he said, was why polio teams were unable to reach those locations.

However, the official, who requested anonymity due to security concerns, was confident children in the remaining areas would soon be covered with the help of security forces. “Once security forces clear those areas, we will have access and can inoculate children,” the official added. He said the remaining areas bordering Afghanistan would also be covered soon.

A security official said before Operation Zarb-e-Azb, 35% of the areas were inaccessible. Now only 5% of the trial belt remains out of reach, he confirmed.

Monitoring polio

When discussing methods used for successful immunisation, another official dealing with polio eradication stated different types of monitoring was carried out. “We do four kinds of monitoring with assistance from WHO, UNICEF and agency officials,” he said. “Yes, it is not official”, he acknowledged, “But we do have a union-council like set up in the tribal areas”.

When contacted, FATA Emergency Operation Cell Media Relations Officer Aqeel Khan confirmed most of the tribal areas were now accessible. According to him, just 2% remained out of reach.

“It all depends on the security situation and we will move further once officials allow us,” Aqeel told The Express Tribune. He added once areas in North Waziristan and Khyber Agency were cleared, polio teams would start inoculating the children.

Children targeted

At least 11 scheduled oral polio vaccination campaigns were carried out in 2015 when the number of target children increased from 796,824 in January 2015 to 951,308 in November 2015.

Currently, there are an estimated 233,129 children in Bajaur, 208,261 in Khyber, 130,273 in Kurram, 87,893 in Mohmand, 36,785 in Orakzai, 72,390 in North Waziristan and 77,353 in South Waziristan agencies.

The number of children targeted in Frontier Region Peshawar is 12,719, a total of 20,257 in FR Kohat, 16,039 in FR DI Khan, over 50,000 in FR Bannu, 10,951 in FR Tank and 8,633 in FR Lakki Marwat.

In 2015, 15 polio cases were recorded from the region with one from North Waziristan, two from South Waziristan, as many from FR Peshawar, and 10 from Khyber Agency.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 9^th, 2016.