Danger: Untrained vaccination team ahead

On first day of campaign, 25 students of govt school fell unconscious after they were given vaccine by health teams.

Over the past three weeks, hundreds of children in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) have fainted after reportedly having a reaction to the measles vaccine while nearly 10 children have died. Regrettably, the provincial government did not make much of an effort to put the drive on hold at once.

On May 19, the K-P government launched a 12-day measles vaccination programme to ensure that an outbreak does not occur as it did last year. However, on the very first day of the campaign, 25 students of a government school fell unconscious after they were given the vaccine by health teams. This continued for the next few days with such reports coming in from several districts.

However, the K-P government seemed to have turned a blind eye to the reports and pressed ahead with the vaccination drive when clearly there was something wrong. In a civilised society, relevant authorities kick into action and begin an investigation at the first sign of trouble. But the provincial government continued to ignore the signs and it took the death of several children for it to wake up from its slumber.

After the death of children, the provincial health minister formed a top-level investigation committee made up of ‘local and foreign health experts’. Sadly, for nearly two weeks there was no wind of what this supposed committee was doing and what it is investigating.

There are several reports floating around that the people who were administering the vaccine to unsuspecting children were not trained and thus injected the medicine incorrectly. A doctor from Charsadda claimed that the vaccine had gone bad because of prolonged power outages in the hospitals it was stored at. But nothing conclusive about the vaccine’s efficacy has emerged from the government’s quarters.

The country’s polio campaign is already a target of militants and refusal cases abound because of several reasons. I’m afraid that the negligence of governments — both federal and provincial — will also alienate people from the measles vaccination drives and parents would refuse to get their children vaccinated against this fatal disease, creating fresh challenges for the state.

How can we expect a country which allocates a measly amount to health in its budget to progress? Governments remain negligent and following their lead the relevant health authorities also ignore their duties without fear of punishment. This needs to stop as soon as possible.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 14^th, 2014.