Five new polio cases surface in a day

Top official of WHO says Pakistan remains the ‘single most important stumbling block along the road to ending polio’.

QUETTA/ KARACHI:

Five new polio cases were confirmed in the country on Tuesday, raising the national count for 2014 to 171 as the top official of the World Health Organisation (WHO) remarked that Pakistan remains the ‘single most important stumbling block along the road to ending polio’ in the world.

Of the five cases confirmed by the National Institute of Health laboratory, two are from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and one each from Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Karachi.

Of the FATA cases, 46-month-old Sadia, daughter of Syed Alam, a resident of Surdand Camp village, in the Bara tehsil of Khyber Agency was never administered polio drops. Similarly, the second affected child, nine-month-old Abdul Samad, son of Khair Zaman, resident of Khushali village in Razmak tehsil of North Waziristan Agency was also never vaccinated.

In K-P, the latest case is eight-month-old Muhammad Talha, son of Nisar, resident of Kot Azam village of Tank tehsil.

In Karachi, 24-month-old Hazrat Bilal, son of Khayal Mohammad, a resident of Union Council 2, Firdous Colony in Liaquatabad, was tested positive.

According to the provincial health department, Bilal was never vaccinated as his family is among those who refused polio drops. Fifteen polio cases have been confirmed in Sindh so far this year.

In Balochistan, a senior health expert confirmed that samples taken from 23-month-old Mohammed Ibrahim, of Kharotabad area of Quetta, have tested positive for polio on Tuesday. This is the fourth reported polio case for the province this year. “It is a chronic vaccine refusal case. The family refused to administer polio drops to their children,” a senior Health worker said.

Ibrahim’s uncle is a cleric and heads an Islamic seminary in Kharotabad, a predominantly Afghan refugee settlement. “The family thinks polio drops are part of a Western campaign to control Muslim population,” said an official of a private organisation working on polio in the area.

Meanwhile, the WHO director-general told an informal high-level meeting of the UN that Pakistan remains the “single most important stumbling block along the road to ending polio” in a world that is 80% free of polio.

“Right now, a massive polio outbreak is sweeping across the country. Worldwide, nearly nine out of every 10 children paralysed by polio live in Pakistan,”  Dr Margaret Chan said.

However, he pointed out that there were some successes. ”Political and local leaders in Peshawar proved last spring that OPV campaigns can be run without a security incident. Local military commanders in Khyber Agency showed that all children could be reached and vaccinated in that area.

This past summer, hundreds of thousands of Waziris were vaccinated in transit posts. Pakistan actually showed that despite the challenges, their children can also be reached, through innovations and a sense of common purpose.”


Published in The Express Tribune, September 24^th, 2014.