Over 380,000 children in Swat district will be vaccinated against polio in a campaign that begins on April 4.
The health department has divided the district into 63 zones and 906 teams have been formed to inoculate 380,364 children under the age of five.
According to Dr Muneeb, coordinator for the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI), Swat is one of the high-risk areas in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
But that was not always that case. Between 2003 and 2006, the valley was declared a model district and received a presidential award as no polio cases were reported in the area. But polio cases began to rise as the valley slipped into the hands of the Taliban who decreed that polio vaccination polio was against Sharia law.
“My son caught the virus during the three years that the valley was under Taliban control and polio vaccination was discontinued,” said Akbar, whose son Hamza contracted polio in 2009. Their area, Ningolai in Kabal district, used to be a Taliban stronghold.
In 2007, the first case of polio was identified in Swat. The number increased to four in 2008 and in 2009 20 cases were reported, which is the highest number so far. In 2010, as the government of Pakistan regained control of the area, polio incidence fell and only one case was reported that year. Since the beginning of 2011, no polio case has been reported.
However, some households remain apprehensive and refuse to allow the teams to vaccinate their children. The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) has started a campaign to counter the reluctance.
“We have formed a team that will conduct door-to-door visits and try to persuade people who are against polio vaccination,” said Badar Munir, Unicef’s District Health Communication Support Officer. “We have especially included Muslim scholars in the team as most cases of refusal come from religious families.”
According to Unicef, the highest number of refusals was recorded in 2007 when Talibanisation was at its peak. “In that year, there were 12,927 refusals. We launched an awareness campaign and in the first round, refusal cases decreased to 106. Now, only 26 cases have been recorded,” said Afarin Khan of the National Research and Development Foundation, which is supported by the Unicef.
A number of ulema in Swat have also appealed to parents to ensure that their children are vaccinated against polio.
“Polio drops accord with Shariah law and are halal. Therefore, to save your child from a life of disability, children under five must be given these drops,” said Maulana Mian Noor Badshah.
Negative attitudes are not the only problem that health practitioners in Swat.
“The horrible condition of the sanitation system in the area plays a key role in spreading polio virus,” Munir said. “So even if we manage to eradicate the virus, the danger is still present if the sanitation system is not improved.”
There is also discontent amongst health department workers, who believe they are paid peanuts for the amount of work they have to do.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 03rd, 2011.
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