It is welcome to note that despite adverse weather condition due to extreme cold across the country, the polio campaign is going on in parts of the country. Yes, the new year’s first  polio campaign is currently in full swing in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while the same is going to begin in Punjab from January 16  and then in Sindh and Balochistan. Along with the weather conditions, the security threat is also a big issue to polio workers in the wake of increasing TTP attacks across the country, mainly the KP province.

It is not that the polio teams are not guarded, the unfortunate reality is that even those who are on security duty of safeguarding the polio teams are also martyred with impunity.

Last year as many as fourteen polio workers and cops on duty to guard polio teams were killed in KP province alone.

Overall, seventy security men on duty to guard polio teams have been killed in KP province, mostly in tribal areas and till now the killers have not been traced which is a lamentable aspect. This situation can deter the polio workers from performing their duties and as such there is a need for special security arrangements and deployment of special teams so that the fear of attacks on polio workers can be done away with. Not only that polio workers are killed, the general public is also mislead on polio drops by the extremists due to which some parents also shy away from vaccinating their children against this deadly virus.

Obviously the purpose of the attack is to deter the polio teams from working in the tribal areas where polio has reemerged with full forces and is spreading like a wild fire.

It is due to this prevailing situation that KP saw a reemergence of polio cases and as many as twenty cases were reported from across the province mainly the tribal areas.

Pakistan was very close to polio free situation but the virus remerged and the regressing lead to quite good number of cases again. It does not mean that a polio-free Pakistan is not possible but this can be achieved with collective efforts by all stakeholders to carry out successful vaccination drives, enhance  security steps for polo teams, and the parents should also cooperate with the polio teams.

The resurgence of polio cases across the country has set the alarm bells ringing as it is sort of a national emergency and health experts call for immediate risk assessment strategies again across the country on the basis of available data.  It is lamentable to note that polio which was about to be eradicated completely from the country has made a strong comeback with as many as 20 cases reported across the country mainly from the KP province.

As many as eight of these cases have taken place in Mir Ali and Miranshah of North Waziristan tribal areas  which is close to Afghan border, while health experts have warned that all southern districts of the KP province are also at high-risk as the danger of contracting this virus has been looming large in these areas, from where the disease can also transmit to other parts of the country as well.  There are various factors for the resurgence of this deadly and crippling disease and foremost being the denial by parents to vaccinate their children against this deadly virus. In fact, it is parents who are putting their young ones at risk of lifelong disabilities by exhibiting such an irresponsible behavior. The irony is that not only the illiterate parents are refusing to vaccinate their children; in some cases educated parents too were found reluctant to administer polio vaccine to their children, as they are being misguided by the conspiracies theories being hatched by the extremists against vaccines drives.

One is really saddened by this disappointing development as our country was very close to totally eradicate this disease as last year, only one case was reported and we were about to achieve the status of a polio-free country, but that could not happen due to the irresponsible behavior of the parents who refused to vaccinate their children.  In fact, there was steady decline in the number of polio patients in recent years which can be gauged from the fact that only one case was reported in the country during 2021 as compared to 147 cases in 2019 and eighty-four in 2020 but it remerged and due to regression the same increased to as many as 20 cases in 2022.

One hopes that the polio teams will reach to each every child during the next polio campaign in southern KP.

Meanwhile, it is also lamentable that the health workers in North Waziristan are also under fire by unidentified assailants in North Waziristan where two cops and a vaccinator were killed in the first week of current month.  But despite this fearful situation, the vaccinators are going on with their mission and go door to door to reach out to maximum number of children.

Waziristan is close to Afghanistan as it is border tribal area and there are an estimated   2.58 million children in 25 districts including North Waziristan, which must be fully vaccinated as this tribal region has merged to be the epicentre of deadly disease with as many as eleven cases reported so far from this area.

One is really concerned over the sudden and high number of polio patients from the tribal districts and since the KP people freely move across the country, the other parts of the country are also at risk.  Right now the Govt is really concerned about the situation and is devising ways and means to control the virus from further spreading and eradicating. For this purpose, it has been decided that injectable vaccines should be used from now on during vaccination drives in KP province. The government has already started providing injectable vaccines to polio teams in the KP southern areas with a view to controlling the transmission of the virus. Authorities said that this form of immunization is not only effective but also highly accepting form of vaccines among the parents.

On the other hand, health experts say that the government should reassess its immunisation strategies to reach out to each and every child so that the virus can be completely eradicated.

It is also welcome to note that the new form i.e., injectable vaccines has been well accepted in the KP where the virus is on the rise.  All stakeholders including the Federal and Provincial Governments as also the general masses take collective efforts to help the country successfully complete this polio immunizations drive with a view to enabling our country to eradicate the disease completely.

Published in The Daily National Courier, January, 14 2023

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