While security, violence is a major factor in Pakistan, need to strengthen vaccination programme cannot be overlooked
KARACHI: Polio vaccination campaigns in Pakistan have been plagued by continuous setbacks. Pakistan has been the major supplier of confirmed polio cases over the past couple of years.
The government of Pakistan has highlighted multiple reasons for the growing polio cases in the country, citing militancy and the refusal of families to vaccinate their children as the primary reasons for the spread of the disease. Militancy, especially in Fata, may have caused hurdles in the way of anti-polio campaign by putting many children at risk. In spite of multiple supplementary immunisation campaigns, the majority of confirmed polio cases identified in Punjab, Sindh and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in 2013 were from areas considered to be low-violence zones.
These failures in Pakistan’s polio eradication campaigns are now frustrating the global aim for a polio-free world. In 2011, polio cases were detected in China’s western Xinjiang province, which borders Pakistan. The type one poliovirus strain was identified to be genetically linked to the endemic in Pakistan. In 2012, Egyptian health authorities found poliovirus strains in two of its sewerage systems. Samples of this poliovirus were traced to the environmental samples in Sukkur in northern Sindh — which is again a low-violence area. In 2013, the same strain from Pakistan found its way in the Palestinian and Israeli sewerage systems via Egypt. Recently, 17 polio cases were detected in four major cities of war-affected Syria, and these have also been linked to the wild poliovirus strain from Pakistan.
Saudi Arabia has already declared polio vaccination mandatory for Pakistani travellers since 2009, and India has also announced that it will implement a ban on travellers from Pakistan who are not immunised against polio. While security and violence is a major problem for polio eradication in Pakistan, the need to strengthen the vaccination programme cannot be overlooked. Introduction of better tools involving information technology, like monitoring of immunisation campaigns through SMS texts and global information system-based systems need to be explored. Wherever possible, these should be implemented to determine accurate coverage during each supplementary immunisation campaign.
Khizra Imtiaz
Published in The Express Tribune, December 5th, 2014.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
