Pakistani polio campaign under threat

Polio vaccinators across Pakistan are facing increasing resistance and threats as they seek to prevent a growing caseload of sick children.

The number of confirmed cases has increased from 58 in 2012 to 306 last year. This period has seen increasing attacks on polio workers – 79 vaccinators or security staff working to protect them have been killed since 2012. Six persons have been killed so far in four attacks in 2015, according to official data.

Women are frequently targeted, with hard line clerics criticising their presence in the field, arguing they should be at home.

“My parents want me to quit. They say it’s too dangerous,” Saadia Bibi, a vaccinator on the outskirts of Peshawar, told IRIN. “[But] I know what damage polio can cause, and also that only women vaccinators will be permitted to enter homes and reach the women and children in our highly conservative culture.”

Entire tracts of the country have been off limits to polio workers as militant groups have threatened anti-polio workers. These include the tribal territory of Waziristan, located along the Pakistan-Afghan border.

“The problem is that these militant groups are using polio in their fight against the government,” Dr. Rana Muhammad Safdar, national emergency coordinator for polio eradication, told IRIN. He said the militants deliberately spread rumours to make vaccination more difficult.

They have to a significant extent succeeded. “We do not trust these people. Their medicines could harm the children and make them sterile. This is what we have been told,” said Rehmatullah Farid, a father of four, in Peshawar. He said he had been “forced” to vaccinate his children this time.

The refusals by parents are just one manifestation of the hostility to the anti-polio vaccine.

The problem has been aggravated since L’affaire Shakil Afridi. A physician employed by the Pakistan government, he was in 2012 jailed for 33 years on the charge the he had assisted the US in collecting the DNA evidence that led to the smoking out in 2011 of Al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden from a safe hideout in cantonment town very near to Islamabad.

He had allegedly led a fake vaccination drive in order to enter the compound where Bin Laden was based. The US continues to press for Afridi’s release but met with no success.

Since the Afridi case, hostility towards polio teams has grown. “The suspicions that we were carrying out this campaign because the West wanted it, and not because it benefitted us, grew because of the Shakil Afridi affair,” said Safdar, who also attributed attacks on polio teams to this.

The attacks are continuing, despite campaigns run by the government to persuade people that vaccination against polio is essential to keep their children safe. .

Efforts by the government to expand polio coverage have meanwhile been stepped up, with a meeting of experts held in February emphasizing the need to strengthen coverage during the winter ‘low season’ when there is reduced risk of the virus being transmitted.

A detailed plan for this was designed at the end of 2014, as the scale of Pakistan’s polio concerns became clear.

From June 2012 to July 2014 a military operation against Taliban insurgents effectively cut off tribal areas including Waziristan as the militants imposed bans. During this period even some of those seeking the vaccine were denied it.

Mehran Khan was among those affected. Originally from South Waziristan, he now lives in Peshawar with his family – which includes a three year-old daughter unable to walk after she contracted polio two years ago.

“I think often about her future and how she will manage,” said Mehran. He said he wanted her and her younger brother vaccinated, but “there was no way to get the drops since the militants stopped health teams.”

People moving out of tribal areas are also being targeted under the latest campaigns, as Pakistan continues to battle a disease that threatens its 27.7 million children.

Editorially commenting on the grim polio scene, leading English daily, The News International (March 22) said: “ The twin tragedies of a growing number of polio cases, crippling hundreds of children across the country, and the murder of health workers trying to protect them, have run side by side in our country for years and it seems the pattern is continuing. This week three persons, two lady health workers and the policeman assigned to protect them, were gunned down in the Danna area of Mansehra while delivering drops to children. The killings took the number of anti-polio workers and security personnel killed in the country since 2012 to 82. The brutal murder of the team taking part in the latest three-day drive against polio is a tragedy for us as a nation. In the first place such incidents tie in to the rising number of polio cases, with 306 reported in 2014 – a new record for the country.

“What is also reflected in the situation is our failure to stop the killings. Yes, efforts have been made in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata, where most of the killings witnessed over the past three years have taken place, to enrol clerics and use their services to help promote vaccination. The federal and provincial governments have also joined hands to combat the onslaught of a disease the global epicentre of which now lies in Pakistan. But it is obvious a great deal still needs to be done if we are to fight back against polio. The murder of health workers discourages others from going out to reach children at risk and also demonstrates that the m
indset that has prevented us from effectively combating polio remains in place. This mindset places children at risk as we continue our struggle against a virus that the rest of the world has widely succeeded in vanquishing”.

Commenting on the need for the safety of Polio workers, noted security expert, Ijaz Ahmed Qaiser has lamented that though Pakistan is a nuclear state and has developed ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, trainer/fighter aircraft, tanks and armed drones, it is unable to ensure immunity for our future generations from crippling and potentially fatal diseases such as polio.

“We usually fail to address challenges because of lack of will rather than lack of resources. The campaign to eradicate polio demonstrates as much”, he wrote in an op-ed piece in Dawn (March 22nd, 2015).

– POREG Team

0 0 votes

Article Rating