Poliovirus: ‘Cover-up’ unearthed in anti-polio campaign

Sometimes workers fill out data forms without actually inoculating children, says an official

PESHAWAR: As the country is geared up to eradicate polio, the authorities concerned have reinforced the monitoring system and identified people involved in ‘fake figure marking’.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries where the polio is endemic.

Officials privy to the matter said on papers everything was shown ‘up-to-the-mark’ and polio workers and officials were mentioned monitoring anti-polio campaigns and putting in their full energy to make the programme a success and eradicate the virus by the end of 2016; however, there were many a slip between the cup and the lip.

They stated that officials leading the campaigns would discuss things on a daily basis, but fail to identify the ‘space’ as registers would carry every single child immunised. Even then the virus would surface leading to suspicion of some kind of cover-up.

The officials stated: “When you find that everything is going well on paper while ground realities speak otherwise, then naturally questions arise about the authenticity of the whole drive and the need to probe it,” adding the services of polio workers found guilty of negligence would be terminated.

“We ultimately found that polio workers, with the connivance of parents refusing to inoculate children, would do fake marking and would pretend as if the children were vaccinated against the crippling virus,” a senior official involved in the polio eradication campaign told The Express Tribune.

Another official, on the condition of anonymity, stated that the majority of workers, including other staff members, had been sacked for absenteeism, adding, “every month we terminate services of 4% to 5% of staff members.”

The official said sometimes staff members -- mostly females -- have failed to catch up with the campaigns.

He also stated that recently a district health communication support official from Tank was also sacked for showing negligence.

When contacted, Emergency Operation Cell (EOC) Coordinator Akbar Khan stated that they immediately imposed a penalty for minor issues, but terminated the services for showing gross violation, specifically negligence.

“Not at all, we have zero tolerance for negligence since it involves children,” Khan told The Express Tribune.

According to the data available with the EOC, some 3,082 parents refused to inoculate their children against the virus with the highest number coming from the provincial capital where around 1,254 parents refused polio drops followed by 441 from Karak district, Bannu (269), Charsadda (263) and Lakki Marwat (235).

A total of 13 confirmed polio cases occurred in the country in 2016 with seven from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, four from Sindh and one each from Quetta and South Waziristan Agency. A National Immunization Drive (NID) has been scheduled for September 26 where 5.6 million children will be inoculated against the virus in K-P.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 20^th, 2016.