Communicating refusal

In 2013, 54,918 children were denied vaccination by their parents.

The issue of why parents would choose to deny their children the few polio drops which could save them from the disease and its potentially crippling effects is one we need to understand. Right now, Pakistan is losing its battle against polio — with at least 85 cases recorded in the country in 2013. This exceeds the 58 confirmed cases in 2012, and makes Pakistan the only nation among the three endemic to polio to see a rise in cases. One reason for this could be the frighteningly high number of ‘refusals’ noted last year. Compared with 2012, when under 74,000 children were denied vaccination by their parents, in 2013, the number had nearly doubled to 154,918. Most of these came in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and Fata, with propaganda by extremists naturally having an impact on the decisions people made.

But there are other concerns too. Provincial health authorities say a breakdown in communications between Unicef, which assists the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI), and the EPI may have contributed to a rise in cases. Unicef has set up a communications body to help coordinate anti-polio efforts, and states it has 320 staff members working in K-P and 187 in Fata. The issue needs to be looked into urgently. This week alone, on a single day, five new cases of polio among children were detected in North Waziristan. It is obvious that we must amend the situation. The problems caused by militancy have already been pointed out. Now it seems that we also have a problem between agencies who need to work together if the problem is to be overcome. The top officials involved in the anti-polio drive in the country must take up the matter, determine where the problems lie and work to resolve them. Unless this happens, we may see a still greater rise in polio cases, jeopardising the safety of our children and pushing the country further back in its battle against a disease which continues to inflict a huge amount of damage even though it can so easily be prevented.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 18^th, 2014.

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