Another polio campaign death

The murder of a 45-year-old LHW is just another reminder of how vulnerable these essential health workers are.

The murder of a 45-year-old lady health worker (LHW) who was associated with the anti-polio drive is just another reminder of how vulnerable these essential health workers are. She was kidnapped at her family home within the jurisdiction of Chamkani police station in the village of Guluzai in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Eight men broke into the house, locked her husband and three children in a room and then stole gold jewellery and cash before fleeing, taking Salma Karim with them. Her body was found later the same day — she had been shot and there are reports also that her body bore marks of torture. The family filed an FIR, and crowds blocked the Peshawar-Islamabad motorway in protest for an hour and the police surmised that she had been targeted for her work with the ongoing drive to eradicate polio.

Such are the bare facts of the case. It is unlikely that anybody will ever be arrested let alone prosecuted for the killing of a woman who was widely respected in her locality. In an unrelated incident, teachers in Swabi have decided that they will not participate in future polio campaigns as it is not a part of their job description. Some, like the LHWs, have paid for their services to public health with their lives. The teachers in Swabi pointed out that in January 2014, the local office of the Expanded Programme of Immunisation office was destroyed and in December 2013 two policemen guarding teachers working as vaccinators were killed. In June 2013, two teachers on vaccination duty were gunned down. The killing of Ms Karim will be in the headlines for a day, then quickly forgotten. The teachers of Swabi are demanding that the responsibility for vaccination be passed back to the health department as the anti-polio campaign once again runs into the buffers. There is a real risk that Pakistan is going to find itself effectively quarantined from the rest of the world by the WHO for the failure of the anti-polio campaign. In the last week, India was officially declared polio-free. Pakistan is years away from achieving the same goal.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 26^th, 2014.

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