Steady decline in number of anti-vaxxers in K-P

Parents of over 6,000 children refuse OPV; 4,000 in Peshawar

PESHAWAR:

Parents of over 6,000 children across Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa refused to inoculate their children against the poliovirus in the first two days of a three-day immunisation campaign. This is a significant decline from over 24,000 refusals in over a month.

Peshawar district still leads the province in refusals; parents of 4,000 turned down the oral polio vaccine (OPV) for their children in this last campaign. Nonetheless, the number still tells a story of some success as the district had over 13,000 refusals in March.

Although the campaign ended on Wednesday, the day’s data could not be obtained. Health officials predict the number of refusals would have increased on the last day of the drive. A follow-up campaign is going to be held to vaccinate the remaining children.

Refusals vs missing

“This is only the number of refusal cases; we are yet to obtain the number of missing children – children who are not present when polio teams visit their homes,” a health official told The Express Tribune. He added missing children can be covered without any resistance but for refusals, the district administration is always contacted.



The official, who requested anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media, confirmed the number of refusals dropped sharply from 13,000 to over 8,000 to finally 4,000 in less than two months in Peshawar. “With the passage of time, the number of refusals will be brought to zero since the provincial government has ordered action against those who are wilfully not inoculating their
kids,” he added.

“Yes, people were arrested for turning away health workers. As a result, the number of refusal cases has come down significantly.” However, the health official said, people were still reluctant to administer the drops to their children to protect them against the crippling virus, despite action taken against parents in the past.

Earlier in March, the provincial government devised a strategy to bring down the number of refusal cases in K-P and issued directives to the district administrations to arrest parents who do not vaccinate children against polio. Over 450 parents had been arrested by March 3.

Soon after the arrests, a senior official of World Health Organization (WHO) expressed his reservation over the policy adopted by the provincial government. The Peshawar district administration, however, reinforced its commitment to continue the ongoing strategy in a bid to eradicate poliovirus from the province.

“We initially try to persuade parents to administer polio drops to their children,” Peshawar DC Riaz Mehsud was quoted as saying on April 4. “However, if they refuse, we arrest them. The district administration knows how to ensure that people comply with its orders,” Mehsood stated.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 16^th, 2015.