Another setback

The last thing Pakistan’s polio campaign needed at this point was another setback. With at least 80 cases reported so far for 2013 and the country remaining among the only three nations in the world still endemic for the disease, we urgently need to move ahead with vaccinating and protecting our children. The militant threat to anti polio teams, misinformation to parents about the vaccine and the killing of health workers has all acted against this, along with flaws in the actual mechanisms of administration.



Now, a new problem arises. Just ahead of a drive planned by the political administration and the health department in the troubled Khyber Agency, polio campaign supervisors have said they will not be carrying out the task of administering the amber drops which can prevent infants from being crippled and can hold back the spread of the virus which remains rampant in our country. The supervisors, at a meeting, have stated that their fear for their own security increased after the December 13 killing of a health worker. They have also made vague allegations of officials being interested in carrying out the campaign simply to receive donor money.

What is most relevant, however, is that this problem means more children will be deprived of the vaccinations they need to stay healthy and well. The situation that has arisen is unfortunate. It simply adds another hurdle to our task of winning the battle against polio. We do not seem to be faring very well. The stopwatch shows a far slower time than that notched up by most other countries in the region. Through the previous year, even Afghanistan has been doing better than us in preventing the growth of polio. Clearly, we need to think long and hard and determine precisely how to overcome the multitude of problems that have come our way following one after the other and making it harder and harder to stop the onslaught of a disease that has been wiped out in most parts of the world. We need to find a way of reducing the difficulties we face rather than standing by and watching them increase.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 6^th, 2014.

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Correction: In an earlier version of this editorial, an incorrect total of polio cases was mentioned. The error has been fixed.