Ongoing drive: Health dept has zero tolerance for polio vaccine refusals

With help of LEAs, officials taking action against parents who turn away polio workers.


Sameer Mandhro March 18, 2016
PHOTO: AFP

KARACHI: Hurmat, a mother of two minor children, refused to allow polio workers to administer vaccines to her children, despite workers attempting to convince her for two consecutive days during the recently-concluded polio campaign across Karachi.

The young mother recently moved to Lyari from Thatta and refused health workers the first time on the advice of her mother-in-law. “She [mother-in-law] instructed me not to let them administer drops to the kids,” Hurmat told The Express Tribune. “She says the drops aren’t good for their health,” she explained.

While on routine assignment, two female polio workers knocked on the door of her home in Lyari’s Union Committee 2 on Tuesday. Hurmat refused the workers and asked them not to visit her again. “They [polio team] visited me the very next day again but I denied them [access] again,” she said.

On Thursday, the fourth day of the campaign, known as a catch-up day, polio workers once again returned to her house, situated in a closed street in a densely populated area.

The polio workers warned her to get both her children, three-year-old Shehzad and nine-month-old Irshad, vaccinated or the officials and law enforcement agencies (LEAs) would be called. “I told them to call anyone they like as I would not allow them to vaccinate my children,” said Hurmat confidently, while narrating the incident to The Express Tribune later.

That day, around a dozen female polio workers and 12 law enforcement officers, including Rangers, led by the revenue department’s area mukhtiarkar, Liaquat Ali Baloch, entered Hurmat’s house. The polio team managed to administer drops to children without any resistance.

“There were a total of eight refusal cases in Lyari this time,” Baloch told The Express Tribune. “All were covered without any trouble,” he explained, saying parents in Lyari, like other safe areas, rarely refuse polio teams. There is no religious element behind these refusals, especially in Lyari, according to Baloch, but sometimes children are not at home or they are not aware of the importance of the drive.

“We are always ready to support polio workers,” said a Rangers official accompanying Baloch, agreeing that very few people refuse the teams. “There is no law and order issue for polio workers, at least in Lyari,” he added.

“Everyone is willing to cooperate with polio teams,” commented Ishaq Hongoro, Hurmat’s neighbour. “This is the first time that any family has refused and LEAs were called,” he added.

According to Hingoro, mostly families cooperated with the polio workers even when the law and order situation was serious in Lyari. “We know the importance of the two drops, as they guarantee the healthy future of the next generation,” he said.

Improved numbers

Health officials said there were over 45,000 refusal cases in the city in December last year but, after the single-phase drive in all 188 union councils of the city being conducted since January, refusals have significantly reduced to around 15,000. There are 2.2 million children under the age of five being targeted in Karachi. With the renewed initiative in the city to eradicate the virus, the monthly three-day campaigns will continue till May in hope of a polio-free Karachi and polio-free Pakistan, say health officials.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 19th, 2016.

COMMENTS

Replying to X

Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.

For more information, please see our Comments FAQ