Taliban-resistant strain: Reverse trend observed in Karachi polio campaign

Parents rush children to hospitals after field vaccinations halted.

KARACHI:

The vaccinators cannot go to them, so they will go to the vaccinators. That is what the parents in several neighbourhoods in Karachi decided after the door-to-door campaign came to a grinding halt this week.

“I have been following immunisation programme for last four and a half years and don’t want to miss this round and risk his future,” said Umer Afridi, pointing towards his bright faced son standing in line waiting for the polio vaccine drops. Like Afridi, there were many parents at this small hospital in Landhi a few minutes’ drive from the spot where two polio campaign lady health workers were shot dead.

The hospital did not want to be named and for good reason. “Print my name after the campaign is over,” said one of the doctors overseeing the vaccinations. “Do you want to see us shot down?” On Friday, at about 10am six parents were standing in line.

Many parents rushed to hospitals and clinics after the polio eradication campaign was halted for the second time this year in a country where 56 cases have been reported so far in 2012.

Despite Tuesday’s attacks, many health workers across Karachi are adamant to continue saving children. “I doubled my staff’s strength at the vaccine counters to do the job as much and as fast as we can as it is very risky now,” said the administrator of a hospital near Sohrab Goth. “The response from parents was unexpected and it is very encouraging for us.” Here in line on Friday were 15 parents and their children at 9:30am. On average, before the campaign started, the hospital would vaccinate 25 children a day. But over the last two days alone it has been over a hundred, he said.

The last round of the polio eradication programme was targeting 4.4 million children across Sindh’s 22 districts (the 23rd, Tharparkar, is being left out) and a majority of these children live in Karachi or other urban centres.

The problem is that now the Sindh government hospitals and private institutions with vaccination counters for children feel that they are at risk. At the Sohrab Goth hospital, for example, internal security has been increased and patients have to cross two barrier checkpoints before entering the building.

“It’s a simple choice, we risk ourselves or the future of our children,” said Amna, the mother of a two-year-old girl. “I fear it, as my first cousin had a polio disability when we were children and I don’t want it to happen to any child in the world.”

Published in The Express Tribune, December 22^nd, 2012.