Editorial

The vaccination crisis

No nation can afford to ignore the health of its children and endanger their lives in this manner.

Editorial April 09, 2014

The money to fund the vaccination is there, but the political and bureaucratic will to spend it appropriately is seemingly not. PHOTO: FILE

There is a crisis across the entire vaccination spectrum that is composed of underfunding, maladministration and plain bad management, coupled with rampant corruption and terrorism in the case of the polio vaccination campaign. Measles vaccination is once again in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. Measles is a childhood illness that is easily preventable by vaccination and has been so for decades. Measles vaccination carries none of the cultural baggage that polio is encumbered with and Pakistan should be well on top of its game when it comes to measles prevention. This does not appear to be the case. The attention being given to the polio campaign has been to the detriment of the measles effort. The Capital Development Authority Directorate of Health Services (DHS) Director, Dr Hasan Orooj, made this point because of the delay in the launching of a 15-day measles immunisation drive in the capital.

So far this year, there have been eight cases of measles in Islamabad, despite which the DHS has been waiting for funds from the federal government for over a year, thus endangering the lives of 221,000 children aged between nine months and 10 years. Failure to immunise against measles on a large scale could provide the opportunity for an epidemic to develop. The DHS submitted a Rs55.1 million plan of implementation to the federal Expanded Programme of Immunisation a year ago. Not a single rupee has yet been released. There are already measles outbreaks in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Azad Jammu & Kashmir.

The government is playing Russian roulette with the nation’s health. Measles is a killer and requires a constantly renewing programme of immunisation to keep it at bay and maintain herd immunity. The money to fund the vaccination is there, but the political and bureaucratic will to spend it appropriately is seemingly not. The situation must change and on a priority basis. No nation can afford to ignore the health of its children and endanger their lives in this manner.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 10^th, 2014.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.