LAHORE: It was the second day of the polio campaign by the health department in a posh locality of the provincial capital. The sun was shining overhead and the temperatures had almost hit 40 degrees. The staff, however, was not much bothered about the hot day.
The two-member team was constantly complaining about the low vaccination rate. “We’re facing reluctance from the community in this campaign,” said Rabbya, a team member. She said the families were citing a video that was recently viral on social media as the reason for refusing polio drops. “Although we face reluctance in this posh area of the city in almost every campaign, this time the phenomenon is particularly high,” she added.
She said she has least idea why the posh area people who have access to information, facilities and advice can refuse two drops of vaccine to their children. “I’ve seen some stuff on social media and I believe there is risk involved in vaccination,” said a woman in immaculate English at a house. The team gave up.
As the team moved ahead, some of the families welcomed the polio team by offering them water, while some turned the team away. And that too after making them wait outside their home in the severe heat for a long time.
Coordinator of the Emergency Operations Centre for Polio Eradication and Director General of Health Services Dr Munir Ahmad said although Punjab has been able to keep the virus at bay it is showing no signs of abating. The coordinator referred to recent examples of a polio case in Dukki, Balochistan, and confirmation of virus in environmental samples of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. “Owing to high influx of population from the neighboring province, it is critical to find the unvaccinated and poorly vaccinated children and immunize them,” Dr Munir said.
He said that the oral polio vaccine was one of the safest vaccines ever developed. It protects children from lifelong paralysis and is so safe that it can even be given to newborns and sick children. Any rumors or media reports on children dying because of taking OPV are false, he asserted.
The coordinator stressed that Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme has come a long way toward building a future in which polio no longer endangers children, families, and communities across our country. The year of 2017 proved another historic year for the programme as it registered an overall 97% drop in cases from the dire situation of 2014 – cases consistently dropped from highs of 306 to 54 in 2015 to 20 in 2016, and only eight in 2017, he concluded.
Published in Daily Times, May 16th 2018.
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