Special campaign: 56,000 kids miss anti-polio drive held in tourist spots

The drive was planned to avoid the transportation of the virus from tourists visiting the districts

PESHAWAR: In a major setback in the fight against polio as many as 56,000 children missed the latest anti-polio campaign held in 12 districts across Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, confirmed officials privy to the campaigns.

According to details, the officials had planned the special campaign since they feared the virus could be transported from other parts of the country after a huge number of tourists visited the province, specifically northern areas.

“See, we cannot take risk since we are very close to stopping the transmission of the virus,” a senior health official told The Express Tribune, adding “We are not saying that the people from Karachi, Lahore or Balochistan carry the virus but there is a possibility that the virus may be transported to these districts.”



According to the data obtained by provincial Emergency Operation Centre (EOC), 56,227 children could not be inoculated, including 4,089 children whose parents refused. Meanwhile, 52,138 children missed the campaign since they were not available when the polio teams visited their homes.

“This is data for only 12 districts where we reported 4,089 refusal cases with majority from Peshawar since parents of 3,929 were reluctant and refused the drops,” informed the official, while talking about the refusal cases.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, also stated that 105 refusals were reported from Mansehra district, 18 from Abbottabad, six from Lower Dir and one refusal case was reported from Haripur district.

He also added that 30,463 of the 52,138 children not available during the campaign belonged to Peshawar district. Besides the provincial capital, 5,012 children were not available during the campaign in Mansehra district, 4,160 in Swat, 3,328 in Abbottabad, 3,139 in Haripur,  2,816 in Haripur, 1,036 in Shangla, 1,032 in Upper Dir, 692 in Batagram, 445 in Chitral and 15 children were not available in Tor Ghar district.



Meanwhile, the EOC officials when contacted said that the number of refusal cases and not available children had dropped significantly in the follow-up campaigns. However, they confirmed that current figure they have is final and these kids could not be administered anti-polio drops in the follow up campaign.