There are now reports of polio from all the four provinces and the future in terms of eradication is looking extremely bleak in the near-to-medium term. The report from Punjab, which has by far the highest percentage of children vaccinated for common childhood illnesses, is of real concern. The national manager of the EPI programme spoke of this being a wake-up call for the government — a call that should not have been needed at all, given the fact that Pakistan is facing travel restrictions because of its failure to control polio, and the proven linkage between cases of polio in other countries and Pakistan. Both Syria and Egypt have confirmed that the viral strain they have isolated originated in Pakistan.
What makes the Chakwal case stand out is that the child was local, not a migratory IDP. It is possible that the child was already in poor health or malnourished, which may reduce the efficacy of its immune system, thus negating the effects of the vaccine. It could also be that there were gaps in the cold-chain or it may even be possible that there was a faulty batch of vaccine — though for a child to be vaccinated seven times and still contract polio should ring alarm bells in any number of places, not least the management of the EPI itself. An urgent inquiry must be conducted to get to the root of the matter.
The national polio outbreak in 2014 is almost certainly exacerbated by the massive movement of IDPs associated with Operation Zarb-e-Azb. Although this has brought many children inside the vaccination envelope, it has also dispersed thousands of unvaccinated children quite widely across the country, and not only in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Such mass movements are the bane of any vaccination programme, and not only of polio. Unvaccinated children are both hosts and transporters of the virus, and if they are in an area where vaccination rates are relatively lower, then the risk of transmission is increased. Poor sanitary facilities and contaminated water are often accompaniments to migration, personal hygiene is often poor and the spread of the disease a virtual certainty without it being tackled on what is truly a war footing.
The EPI official has expressed concern at the poor quality of the polio drives in Balochistan that have been carried out in recent years, and a recent evaluation report showed clear gaps in the programme. The vaccinators are themselves at severe risk and there is a long list of these poorly paid but valiant people — mostly women — being killed as they go about their duties. The security services are not always as mindful of their job as they need to be and fail to protect the vaccinators, and there is a steady cull of programme administrators as well, which further degrades the effectiveness of the programme. Pakistan cannot afford to lose this battle.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 9th, 2014.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
COMMENTS (2)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
1726722687-0/Express-Tribune-Web-(9)1726722687-0-270x192.webp "instability hurts progress cm punjab")
Yet MORE examples that vaccines, plain, DON'T WORK!!!
A child in Pakistan has gotten polio despite MULTIPLE doses of vaccines!
This child who has been diagnosed comes from Kalar Kahar, District Chakwal, and according to her parents, has already received more than seven doses of the polio vaccine, in itself an extremely worrying development.
The vast majority of cases are being reported from Fata, with 77 so far, and the number is expected to rise as the year advances. There are other reports of children having received multiple vaccinations, yet still contracting the disease, including a girl from Peshawar and a boy from Karachi.
Not to mention that In 1977 Dr Jonas Salk (inventor of the Salk polio vaccine) testified with other scientists that 87% of the polio cases which occurred in the US since 1970 were the by-product of the polio vaccine. The Sabin oral polio vaccine (OPV) is the only known cause of polio in the us today A preliminary study by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) found children who received the HiB vaccine were found to be 5 times more likely to contract the disease than children who had not received the vaccine.
In the New England Journal of Medicine July 1994 issue a study found that over 80% of children under 5 years of age who had contracted whooping cough had been fully vaccinated!!
Vaccines do NOT protect anyone from anything! They just give the FALSE illusion of protection -- vaccination does NOT equal immunization (just ask anyone who has been vaccinated multiple times, and yet "titer" testing shows no immunity to those diseases they were vaccinated against!) and the so-called "benefits" do NOT outweigh the massive risks!!
The failure of Pakistan to prevent spread of polio into Punjab owing to the Pakistan Military’s gorging of scarce national resources for military prestige building, weapon system acquisition, building a large nuclear weapon stockpile and supporting lavish life styles for the Punjabi dominated military top brass, has the potential of adversely effecting India through spread of the disease across the border into India. So in order to prevent the polio virus joining the list of other unwelcome exports from Pakistan into India; namely terrorists, firearms, ammunition, explosives, illegal narcotics and counterfeit Indian currency notes, it would be prudent for India to just stop providing visa’s to Pakistanis to visit India and simultaneously prohibit Indian’s from visiting Pakistan.
India should not permit herself to be swayed by sympathy inducing Pakistani arguments about the need for maintaining people to people contact, helping divided families and using visit visas as confidence building measure to foster peace. India must instead be free to enjoy the fruits of eschewing the temptation of acquiring lots of nuclear “bums” and weapon systems in order to make resources available for polio eradication unlike Pakistan.