Polio eradication campaign: Non-availability of vaccine sets off alarm bells

World Health Organisation fears this may deprive more than 35.5 million Pakistani children of the vital drops.

ISLAMABAD:

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has raised serious concerns over the non-availability of polio vaccine in Pakistan, fearing it may deprive more than 35.5 million children of the vital drops and inflict non-repairable damage to the polio eradication campaign.

The next campaign is scheduled to be held in the second week of July.

According to official documents available with The Express Tribune, through an ‘urgent’ official correspondence the WHO has informed the Prime Minister’s Polio Monitoring Cell of the inevitability of a crisis if the government fails to take action to procure the polio vaccine on an emergency basis.

“It is needless to say that all recent achievements under the dynamic leadership will be seriously jeopardised if immunisation activities are not conducted due to the non-availability of the vaccine,” the documents state.

The organisation also expressed concern over the existence of only one registered supplier for the bivalent OPV in Pakistan – cause of the vaccine’s non-availability.

Furthermore, according to the documents a meeting of the National Task Force held on May 7 agreed to grant a waiver to more WHO-qualified vaccine suppliers in order to meet the requirement for the supplementary immunisation activities (SIAs) in Pakistan.

It takes six weeks to deliver the vaccine after the order is placed, which is only possible after a wavier is granted by the government.

The documents highlight concerns about the threat of the polio virus spreading to other parts of the country. “A new polio case usually requires a special emergency response round to ensure that children in the area are saved from the virus. As you can understand, any further delay will lead to late order placements and disturbance in the schedule of the SIAs which the country absolutely cannot afford at this critical time,” the documents state.

Meanwhile, senior officials working closely with the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) told The Express Tribune on the condition of anonymity that the WHO may have chosen the wrong office to look into the matter as the Prime Minister’s Polio Cell is only a monitoring body.

The Inter-Provincial Coordination (IPC) Ministry, through necessary funding from the economic affairs division, is the correct body to procure the vaccine, they said.

They added that almost all high-ranking officials of the Pakistan Polio Programme, including the National EPI manager, were in Geneva to attend the World Health Assembly last week. However, the major crisis in the making was not brought up by any of the concerned officials.

Health experts currently see Pakistan as progressing well in the fight against polio with 16 cases reported this year as opposed to 41 cases during the corresponding period last year. However, they believe that with a delay in the delivery of the vaccine, the country may start rolling back on its gains of the current year.

When contacted, focal person for National Polio Eradication Shahnaz Wazir Ali said demand of the vaccine has increased due to an increase in the number of polio vaccination points throughout the country.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated "police eradication" instead of "polio eradication". The correction has been made.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 30^th, 2012.