Fighting the polio virus: 26 cases reported in Sindh this year

Health department blames upsurge on the recent floods.

KARACHI: Two-and-a-half-year old Nasseb from Gulshan-i-Iqbal was diagnosed with the P-3 polio virus, which affected all his limbs.

Two other polio cases were detected in Karachi. One was of seven-month-old Mariam from Korangi and the other was six-year-old Zahida from SITE town.

Polio has been eradicated from 122 countries but unfortunately Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Nigeria are still affected by the virus.

Health department officials said that sometimes the vaccines are not stored at the right temperature or they expire because they are not used. Nearly 5,000 vitamin A capsules were found from a roadside garbage dump in Baldia Town five months ago.

The virus is spreading in Sindh due to the lack of proper vaccination. Nearly 26 polio cases have been detected so far this year and these are a setback to the government and foreign donors’ efforts to eradicate the disease.

Civil Hospital, Karachi’s Professor Aisha Minhaz said that polio is an incurable disease and no affected child can lead a normal life. She advised parents to take proactive measures and get their children administered vaccinations.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) provides millions of rupees every year to the Expended Programme on Immunisation (EPI) for polio vaccination in the country.

However, the problem is that a large amount of these funds are taken by health officials and many children do not receive the vaccine.

The Sindh health department blames the recent floods for the increasing number of polio cases. Sindh Health Minister Dr Sagheer Ahmed said that because of the flood more polio cases were reported this year but the government is trying to control the virus.

Independent healthcare experts believe the disease can be eradicated only after radical improvements are made in the sanitation system.

Despite their claims, our government has failed to eradicate or control the disease even though countries like Bangladesh have succeeded in fighting the disease, said ex-president of the Pakistan Medical Association Dr Qaisar Sajjad. He also urged the government to improve sanitation facilities and educate the masses about the vaccination to help fight the disease. “The perception that many people have about the vaccination leaving negative impacts on the child’s health are all false and parents should administer polio drops to every child under 5 years of age,” he said.

Provincial programme manager EPI Muhammed Mazhar Khumasani confirmed the 26 cases of polio reported in the province, adding that 12 of the reports were from Ghotki.

The Ghotki cases included three-year-old Abdullah and five-year-old Sweera who had both taken 3 routine and 10 extra dozes of the polio vaccine.

They were both tested with the P-1 virus which affected both their right legs. Another reported case was about one-year-old Afsana who took zero routine and 5 extra doses of the vaccine.

She was tested with the P-1 virus which affected her legs. The other cases were of six-month-old Maqsood, three-and-a-half-year old Asma, six-year-old Shahzia, 13-year-old Mubeena, eight-month-old Zaheer, one-and-a-half year old Saddaro, one-year-old Wajid Ali, one-and-a-half-year old Kalo and three-year-old Kashmiran.

Two cases were reported in Sanghar district which were of 12-year-old Sohani and eight-year-old Tayyab.

The cases from Khairpur district were of one-and-a-half-year old Hina and four-year-old Ghulam Asghar.

In Sukkur, there was the case of three-year-old Aziza, while in Kamber-Shahdadkot district the reported cases included one-year-old Samia, two-year-old Yaseen and five-years-old Deedar.

In Hyderabad, one-year-old Muhhamad Bilal and two-and-a-half-year-old Babaru Din were affected by the virus while the only report in Kashmore was of four-year-old Hafeez.

Of the cases reported, 12 patients were baby girls while 14 were boys and their ages ranged from 6 months to 13 years.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 20^th,2010.