QUETTA: Three more polio cases were detected in Balochistan on Friday, raising the total number of patients suffering from the disease in the province to 52, the highest number in any province in the country.
The cases were reported in the districts of Loralai, Pishin and Quetta, an official of the UN’s Children Fund (Unicef) Jawahir Habib toldThe Express Tribune, saying “Polio cases have increased by 100 per cent in Balochistan.”
The patients were identified as three-month-old Abdul Samad Khan, three-day-old Bibi Rinsha, and one-month-old Bibi Jamila.
According to World Health Organisation (WHO) officials, more than 75 per cent of the cases detected in the province are from Quetta, Pishin and Qila Abdullah. “Around 1.5 million children below the age of five are at risk of being infected with polio in Balochistan,” Habib added.
Dr Sarfaraz, an official involved in the anti-polio campaign in Balochistan, said an immunisation drive was being launched every month in the province due to the ever-increasing numbers.
As many as 17 children were reported with the polio virus in Qila Abdullah, 13 in Pishin, 10 in Quetta, three each in Khuzdar, Naushki and Loralai, and one in Kohlu, Kalat and Dera Bugti each.
However, the Rotary Club’s Polio Eradication Programme Chief Coordinator for Balochistan Dr Hanif Khelji said that the teams constituted for anti-polio drives were not reaching some areas in northern Balochistan.
Additionally, he said, schoolchildren had been employed in anti-polio drives, adding to the woes of parents wanting to get their children vaccinated. “How can a student of grade eight administer polio vaccines?” asked Dr Khelji.
Meanwhile, WHO official Tahira Kamal said there was a common misperception in areas of northern Balochistan that anti-polio vaccines result in impotence. “During Friday sermons, prayer leaders call polio drives an ‘anti-Islam campaign’ by the West to control Muslim populations,” said Kamal.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 20th, 2011.
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This is what can so easily happen... polio is just a plane flight away! The final 1% of the job of eradicating polio from the world will be the most difficult #rotaryendpolio. From having 125 polio-endemic countries to just 4 has been an amazing result, and Rotary International has been a key player in this task, having volunteered their time and personal resources to reach more than two billion children in 122 countries with the oral polio vaccine. www.rotary.org/EndPolio. It's important that the world gets behind World Polio Day on Monday 24th October, and commits to eradicating this vicious disease. Please spread the hashtag #rotaryendpolio