Polio: Peshawar to be divided in three zones for new campaign

Home and tribal affairs department asked to increase security for vaccination teams.

PESHAWAR:

Peshawar will be divided into three zones for the next polio vaccination campaign. The polio drives will now be nine days long instead of three.

The decision came after the May 29 incident in Kaga Wala village of Badhaber which led to the death of two female vaccinators, Sharafata Bibi and Sumbal Bibi. Following the attack, the health department asked the home and tribal affairs department to increase the security for vaccination teams.



Under the new plan, each team will be escorted by two police officials. The other districts of the province have also been told to devise a strategy according to their security plan.

“Conducting the entire campaign in three days is not possible as we cannot provide escort to teams in three zones at the same time,” said an official of the chief minister polio monitoring cell, requesting anonymity.

He said around 698 personnel are required for one zone adding some vaccination teams in the district have refused to follow through with the campaign due to “insufficient security”.

“Some have also said they do not want the police escort as that would invite attention,” he said, “We hope these teams are convinced by the union council’s polio eradication officers.”

There are 350 vaccination teams in one zone, if we conduct the whole campaign at one time it would require more than 2,000 personnel which we do not have.”

Six vaccinators and three police personnel have been killed and one injured in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa since December 18, 2012. This compelled the government to stop publicising the drives which in turn increased the number of refusal cases in the province.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 24^th, 2013.