Will polio ever be history?

After many years when there is finally hope that polio can be eradicated from Pakistan this year, recent reports on ‘fake polio markings’ are very disturbing. In the polio campaign in K-P, while records stated that all children had been immunised, the virus had still appeared in parts of the province. Some polio workers, in connivance with parents refusing to inoculate children, were marking children as immunised even when they had not been administered the vaccine. Such a fraud has a huge human cost because even one such case severely impacts all efforts made by the campaign to fight polio. It is hoped that all such areas where these ‘fake markings’ have occurred will be identified and action taken against polio workers responsible as well as parents, whose efforts to exploit the system may leave children crippled for life. According to date available at the polio emergency cell’s records, there were over 3,000 refusal cases in K-P. It is very disappointing that once again the majority of the cases were in the provincial capital, where over 1,200 such cases were recorded. Polio refusals and now ‘fake markings’ must be dealt with as quickly and sternly as possible. While cases of parents refusing to administer vaccine to children happen all over the world, Pakistan is among the only two countries that have failed to eradicate the virus. The fight against polio is a fight against mindsets in the midst of grave security concerns for polio workers on ground, whose lives are continually under threat.

Only two years ago, poliovirus seemed completely out of control with nearly 300 cases recorded in 2014 and travel restrictions imposed on Pakistan. Since then, Pakistan has made commendable strides with efforts within the country as well as from organisations around the world. This is not the time to allow for any negligence. Fake markings will come in the way of a very difficult struggle. Each and every child deserves a polio-free life.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 22^nd, 2016.

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