No more polio-free

Pakistan has come a long way in its fight against polio, but is yet to be declared a polio-free country. It is one of the three polio-endemic countries along with Afghanistan and Nigeria. Despite regular vaccination campaigns, at least eight polio cases have been reported in the year 2018 — three in Balochistan, four in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and one in Karachi, Sindh. According to a report, the annual incidence of polio was estimated at 20,000 in 1990s. However, since its initiation in 1994, Pakistan’s Polio Eradication Programme has been a success story with a decline in the number of cases from 306 in 2014 to 54 in 2015 and then 20 in 2016, eight in 2017 and eight in 2018.

Despite a steady decline in the number of reported cases, the surveillance system indicates the presence of polio virus and this worries the stakeholders. This has, therefore, compelled the federal government to change its evaluation criteria for the provinces. According to the new criteria, now the environmental factor will also be taken into consideration to determine the success or achievement rate. Samples will be collected from sewage water and if the virus is found in these samples, it would be assumed that the polio eradication campaign has failed to achieve the target in the area from where the sewage water sample was collected.

The remarkable success achieved in eradicating the deadly virus is definitely due to strong commitment on the part of successive federal and provincial governments, support of the law-enforcement agencies, highest dedication of volunteers conducting regular campaigns as well as enhanced level of monitoring and surveillance. But some reports indicate that polio teams are still facing resistance in some areas. The other day a report said that some residents in up-scale localities of Islamabad refused to get their children vaccinated. And this is really surprising and disappointing. The issue needs to be addressed by the government or respective local administrations more vehemently.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 18^th, 2018.

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