Kept under wraps: Anti-polio campaign restarts with new strategy

The teams will have higher security due to fear of possible attacks.

KARACHI:

The polio eradication campaign restarted on Saturday with a new strategy and higher security for teams, said a government official at the Expanded Program on Immunization, on condition of anonymity due to fear of possible attacks.

“The new strategy was formed after President Asif Ali Zardari’s meeting with Shahnaz Wazir Ali and other officials last week,” said the official said. “We are now conducting vaccine rounds after a complete survey of the area and coordinating with district administration. Police will be on standby.”

Shahnaz Wazir Ali, special assistant to the prime minister on social sectors and focal person of the monitoring cell on polio, said last week that Pakistan would continue the campaign against polio with a new strategy and better security for the vaccinators.

Pakistan is one of three countries in the world still at risk of polio virus but the door-to-door campaign to get rid of the disease was stopped after five female health workers were shot dead in December 2012 at the start of a nationwide polio vaccination drive. The seemingly coordinated attacks in Karachi and Peshawar raised fears for the safety of inoculators and highlighted resistance to a campaign by the Taliban.

The EPI official also said the campaign has started with scattered and different districts of the province while there is also possibility of changing the campaign’s duration according to security requirement and situation. On certain high-risk areas police will accompany the teams, he said without naming the places.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 6^th, 2013.