So long as it is not possible to access the entire population that is at risk, there is always going to be a pool of unregulated and highly mobile people with the capacity both to harbour the virus and spread it. PHOTO: EXPRESS
The issue was complicated further by the fake polio campaign that the CIA used as a weapon in its hunt for Osama bin Laden. Furthermore, according to the World Health Organization, traces of the polio virus found in the sewers of Israel, Palestine and Syria were reported to have orginated in Pakistan. As a result, Pakistani citizens will be, as of June 1, required to provide proof of polio vaccination when travelling to other countries. Those working at the grassroots in the polio drives are desperately vulnerable. The toll of vaccinators and those who protect them has risen to 56 since December 2012. There are 2,235 teams of vaccinators in the new campaign, typically women who are paid a pittance when they are paid at all — itself a matter of disgrace to those managing the efforts. It is reported that there are ‘elaborate security arrangements’ in place to protect them, with the army to the forefront. This is certainly a more settling development.
Children in three out of four target areas are not going to be getting the drops, and therein lay the seeds of failure. So long as it is not possible to access the entire population that is at risk, there is always going to be a pool of unregulated and highly mobile people with the capacity both to harbour the virus and spread it. The majority of the 67 cases of polio reported in the country thus far this year have their origins in Fata — though several have also been reported from Karachi. Unless and until the government writ runs across the whole of Fata, polio eradication is a virtual impossibility — the grimmest of grim realities.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 28th, 2014.
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@Farooq: Religious leaders are the major hurdle in vaccination campaign.They will only hurt it
Local political and religious leaders should be motivated to play their role in their respective areas
@unbelieveable
First establish your writ in big cities of Pakistan, then think about rest.
Unless and until the government writ runs across the whole of Fata, polio eradication is a virtual impossibility — the grimmest of grim realities . Govt has to have writ across all of Pakistan to resolve many of it's core issues - whether its relations with neighbors or contagious diseases you can't solve until you actually control your territory.