How children on the move are getting polio vaccine

Transit teams ensure no child travels without getting anti-polio drops

QUETTA: December is nearing its end and almost all schools in Balochistan are closed due to cold weather. It’s time for many children to spend their winter vacations with their relatives.

That’s why these days one finds many children at Quetta Railway station travelling along with their parents mostly to cities of Punjab and Sindh. “I am going to Lahore to spend my winter vacations with my grandparents. We will be having fun over there,” said little Asma.

She also showed her index finger. There was a mark on it, made with violet ink by a member of a polio transit team deployed at the station after she gulped down a few drops of anti-polio vaccine.

“We know how important the polio vaccination is and by vaccinating Asma, we are assuring that not only our daughter is safe but also children of the area where we will stay during the vacation period,” said Muhammad Asghar, Asma’s father.

Members of this polio team were roaming over the platform to vaccinate every child under five years.

“In November, we vaccinated more than 4,000 under five-year-old children who were travelling to other cities of Pakistan. This is the peak season because schools have closed, and families are moving from Quetta to Lahore, Rawalpindi, Karachi, Peshawar and many other cities,” said one of the vaccinators.

However, such teams are also deployed at bus terminals, looking for little children travelling with their families. Polio teams are making sure that they remain happy, healthy and safe from lifelong disability that can be caused because of polio virus.

The role of polio transit team is very important.

They are meant to vaccinate every little child on the move and their aim is to boost their immunity against the polio virus. These teams are deployed not only transit points among provinces but also within cities.

Yaro check post is an important transit point which is the only gateway to Quetta city from other districts especially from high risk districts of Pishin and Qilla Abdullah and also Afghanistan.

Here a fourteen-member polio team is working in two shifts.

In the last month, more than 8,000 children were covered by this team. There are 47 permanent transit points in Balochistan including 14 in Quetta block.

This year, 117 polio cases have been reported as compared to 12 cases in 2019.

The environmental samples are positive in many cities, indicating presence of polio virus in our surroundings posing threats to the under five-year-old children specially those who are malnourished.

The children on the move are on a higher risk because they can be virus carrier and can spread it everywhere. “It is therefore responsibility of the parents that they cooperate with the polio teams and let their children vaccinated while travelling,” said a vaccinator at the check post.

Polio, a crippling disease that now exists in only three countries of the world including Pakistan, can be prevented only through anti-polio vaccine, but it cannot be cured once the virus affects a child.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 31^st, 2019.