The fight against polio

Militants in Pakistan have killed polio workers this year but it is the afflicted people who are the real victims.

It is tragic that polio, which is easily preventable by vaccination but can cause paralysis and even death if not immunised, has been eliminated around the world except in Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan. It is doubly tragic that those valiantly fighting to eliminate it are targeted by militants, who believe killing polio workers somehow protects Islam.

Militants in Pakistan and Nigeria have killed 20 polio health workers in the past three months but it is the hapless people afflicted by polio who are the real victims of these senseless crimes.

According to data from the World Health Organisation, there were 223 cases of polio last year: 122 in Nigeria, 58 in Pakistan and 37 in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, early in 2012, according to a report, India declared itself polio free, proving that where there is a will, there is a way to eradicate this disease.

This will prove essential for WHO, which renewed its resolve on March 8 to press ahead, despite grave threats to health officials, to eradicate polio globally by 2018.

The head of WHO, Dr Bruce Aylward, said on March 8 that his organisation was looking for ways to reduce risk factors for those fighting polio — and this will be of immense import given that militants have upped the ante in their resolve to disallow polio workers from conducting their immunisation programmes.

The Taliban banned polio vaccinations last year, saying it was a ruse to spy on Muslims and suspicions were rife among the public after the publicization of the use of the polio campaign in the Osama bin Laden operation.

Conspiracy theories are also rife in Nigeria, as are violent reactions to polio eradication programmes with 10 people killed in two clinics where polio workers were present in February.

Aylward said the tragedy only strengthens the resolve not just of organisations like WHO but of governments, too, and there are international organisations like the Gates Foundation that are committed to eradicating this deadly disease. Pakistan, thus, has no excuse but to soldier on its fight against polio.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 10^th, 2013.