The persistence of polio

The global battle to eradicate polio just took a step forward. Nigeria celebrated its first year as being polio-free recently, and this in a country wracked by conflict and the predations of Boko Haram. Assuming that tests in the near future show no sign of the polio virus, then Nigeria will come off the list of countries listed by the World Health Organisation as polio-endemic. This is a significant achievement not only for Nigeria but for Africa as a whole, where there has not been a case of polio since August 11, 2014 (in Somalia). This has been achieved by the government taking an aggressively proactive lead in the fight, engaging with traditional tribal leaders and Muslim clerics and the tactic has clearly paid off — which places yet more pressure on Pakistan to do the same. In 1988, polio was endemic in 125 countries and paralysed an estimated 1,000 children a day. In 2015, there have been 33 cases worldwide and 28 of those were in Pakistan, the latest being reported in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on August 7. Peshawar remains a hot-spot with eight registrations in 2015.

It is undeniable that there has been a drop in the number of cases this year compared to last, when there were a catastrophic 296. It may seem that the battle is being won, but polio is highly persistent and notoriously difficult to eradicate. There are those who seek to keep polio amongst us rather than get rid of it. They are influenced by a dark obscurantism that says that polio vaccinators are ‘spies’ and that the vaccine itself is part of a global conspiracy to sterilise the entire Muslim population. Were this to be true, there would have been a marked drop in the birthrates right across the Muslim world — which, of course, has not happened. Encouraging as the drop in reported cases may be, there is no room for complacency. Vaccinators and those who protect them remain at grave risk. Nigeria has shown what is possible and it is now for Pakistan to follow suit.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 12^th, 2015.

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