Dirt breeds disease

Pakistan generally has tried and repeatedly failed to eradicate polio. Billions of rupees have been spent on national drives, hundreds of brave vaccinators, doctors and programme organisers have been murdered on the job and there has been a marked reduction in the numbers of cases nationally, but eradication still eludes. The chief minister of Sindh on Tuesday squarely nailed one of the causal factors in this — the appalling state of solid and liquid waste management in Karachi. The CM was meeting with the Provincial Task Force for the Eradication of Polio, and laid out the primary causal reasons for failure. Primarily they are a high vaccination refusal rate particularly from Afghan and Balochistan communities in the city — and deficient garbage lifting services in areas that still produce polio cases. The filthy and polluted nullahs were also singled out.

This is not rocket science in terms of the macro spectrum of urban management. The Karachi commissioner has now been directed to ensure that garbage lifting commence in Gulshan and Gadap towns, and that was to happen within 48 hours. The corporation municipal commissioner is to sit with the local government secretary and come up with a practical plan that will address at least one of the vectors that enable the polio virus to survive and prosper.

Once again we have before us fine words from the very top of the city hierarchy. Yet again we hear a call to tackle the problem ‘on a war footing’. All and sundry are exhorted to do more but with a refusal rate in Karachi in 2017 standing at 7.01 per cent as against 0.08 per cent in the rest of Sindh there is clearly an uphill battle. If the refusal rate can be brought down and the city filth removed more effectively, then Pakistan at least has a fighting chance of winning the war against polio. Giving the city a regular wash of the face is both doable and of benefit to all. Time to clean up the City of Blights.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 13^th, 2018.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.