Polio eradication initiative: Number of families refusing inoculation down by 50%

Repeatedly missed children continue to pose grave threat to Pakistan, UNICEF’s chief of polio reveals.

ISLAMABAD:

As efforts to eliminate the virus gain momentum across the country, the World Health Organisation (WHO), Unicef and Prime Minister’s Polio Cell revealed that polio teams have recorded almost a 50% reduction in the number of families refusing inoculation during the recently-concluded national anti-polio campaign.

According to the data jointly released by the polio eradication programme partners, the number of refusing families has declined from 80,330 during the first national polio round held in January 2012 to 45,122 in October 2012 — 35,208 families that had previously refused polio immunisation for their children have now been administered with the antidote.

Marking a significant decline of 55%, against the 34,966 families refusing polio drops in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) during the January 2012 polio round, only 15,663 families refused the antidote during the October polio campaign.

Similarly, the number of refusals in Punjab posted a 73% decline — from 6,233 in January to 1,702 in October.

Balochistan (21%), Sindh (26%) and FATA (85%) also recorded sharp reductions in the number of refusing families where only 10,100, 17,100 and 455 children missed the October polio round against the 12,813, 23,244 and 3,014 children who missed the vital drops during January, respectively.

Concerns

Notwithstanding the significant reduction in refusal cases, every unvaccinated child continues to pose a major challenge. “It is a cause of grave concern that polio teams across the country have still missed 484,344 children during the last polio round,” stated WHO Senior Coordinator for Polio Eradication Dr Elias Durry.

According to Dr Durry, the biggest hurdle that prevents Pakistan from attaining polio-free status is the number of children who are persistently being missed during anti-polio campaigns.

“It took countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran very few rounds to eradicate polio because their secret ingredient was the ability to vaccine each and every child,” he said quoting the example of Iran, which achieved polio-free status after conducting only four national door-to-door polio campaigns.

“Where officials and polio teams across the country deserve due credit and appreciation for converting families that previously refused polio drops, we need to take adequate steps to ensure that the number of children missed for reasons other than refusals is also brought down,” Special Assistant to the Prime Minster Shahnaz Wazir Ali stated while praising polio team members.

Commenting on the final results of the polio campaign, Unicef’s Chief of Polio Dennis King said more work was needed before Pakistan stood in the proud row of polio free nations.

“There is still work to be done on the remaining refusals and especially on those kids who are consistently missed and have never been reached by vaccinators,” the press release quoted him as saying.

Pakistan has reported a total of 47 polio cases during the current year against the 113 cases that surfaced during the corresponding period last year.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 23^rd, 2012.