Combating polio: Ill-planning, security lapses hamper drives

Meeting of technical advisory body to be held on Feb 14-15.

ISLAMABAD: The biggest challenge in the country’s fight to eradicate polio is the burdensome nature of the back-to-back campaigns and lack of adequate security measures for health workers.

Official sources in the Prime Minister’s Polio Cell said the frequent holding of polio vaccination campaigns within short intervals is affecting the quality of the health drives.

As health officials are still busy with one campaign, the deadline to start another approaches due to which they find it difficult to make necessary preparations, said the official, requesting anonymity. He added that the poor quality of polio vaccination campaigns is also a waste of resources as it fails to achieve the desire results and causes a set back for the country in its fight against polio.

“Considering the polio situation in the country, there is a need to focus on the quality of the campaign and not on the quantity as without good quality campaigns, Pakistan would not be able to wipeout the crippling disease,” said the official.

Sharing the details, sources said last year a total of 17 anti-polio drives were carried out across the country but the nature of their quality is questionable. Sharing examples of overlapping campaigns, he said “Pakistan had to call off the ‘Short Interval Polio Campaigns’ targeting 8.8 million children which were scheduled from January 5-7 in 76 district of the country in order to carryout the nationwide anti-polio drive which was also scheduled to begin from January 19.”

Some of the parents also express reservations over getting their children vaccinated against the crippling disease every month, he added.

Repeated campaigns with short intervals are also affecting coverage of routine immunisation in the country as vaccinators and officials remain overworked throughout the year and find it difficult to concentrate on other vaccine-preventable diseases, said a health official working on immunisation activities.

Talking about the prevailing security situation, sources said it has become challenging to get security personnel for the campaigns every month.

When contacted, Prime Minister’s Focal Person for Polio Eradication Ayesha Raza Farooq said the government is aware of the problems with regards to the problems of repeated anti-polio drives as well as lack of adequate security personnel to guard health workers. Therefore, she explained, to discuss the strategy in the light of the current situation, the year’s first meeting of the Technical Advisory Group on Polio is scheduled to be held from February 14-15.

In December last year, the government had requested the World Health Organisation to convene a meeting of the group as soon as possible to review the situation and discuss all issues related to the sustainability of quality campaigns, she said.

“Pakistan cannot compromise over the quality of the campaigns at any cost as it is the only weapon we have to fight the disease which is crippling our children and brining a bad name to Pakistan,” said Farooq.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 27^th, 2015.