Article

2013-09-03 India-Pakistan

Health authorities in North Waziristan tribal areas recently confirmed five new polio cases there and suspect there are many more.

It's usually 20-30 cases of infection for every case of paralysis...

It's one of a series of outbreaks this year in parts of the country where security threats have kept out vaccination teams.

Officials worry these outbreaks -- inflamed by militant threats and attacks on vaccination teams -- could worsen and spread to other parts of Pakistan, especially since the country is entering the high season for virus transmission.

This doesn't happen in more civilized countries...

My Mom used to be afraid to let us go swimming in August, the "dog days," when polio transmission was at its highest levels for the year. That was only sixty years ago. The sugar cube I eventually got didn't make me sterile. I don't think I could memorize the Koran, though, so maybe there's something to it.

"It's not like a pot of boiling water where you see bubbles coming from everywhere, but there is steam coming out from specific areas," said Dr Elias Durry, emergency coordinator for polio eradication in Pakistan for the World Health Organisation. "Our fear is that the virus from these areas can go out and seriously jeopardise the success in fighting polio that has been achieved in the past couple of years."

Pakistan -- one of only three countries left where polio is endemic -- had 198 confirmed cases in 2011, the highest number of any nation in the world. Pakistan was able to bring that number down to 58 in 2012 through a vaccination program that is supported by the United Nations.

But the militant threats could reverse that progress. There have been 27 confirmed polio cases in Pakistan so far this year -- the third highest total in the world after Somalia and Nigeria. Seventeen of them have occurred in the country's semiautonomous tribal region, the main sanctuary for Taleban and Al Qaeda militants, Durry said. Two powerful Pakistani Taleban militants have banned vaccinators from North and South Waziristan over roughly the past year because of their opposition to US drone strikes. Gunmen have also killed over a dozen vaccination workers and police guards in different areas of the country. Many suspect the Taleban of carrying out the murders, although the group has denied the allegation.

Militants have claimed the vaccine is meant to sterilise Muslim children and accused health workers of being US spies. The allegation gained traction after the CIA used a Pakistani doctor to try to confirm the presence of Osama bin Laden in 2011 under the guise of an immunisation program.

Some families couldn't afford to make the six-hour journey to get the vaccine from Peshawar even if they wanted to take the risk. Health workers have stationed themselves at two checkpoints protected by the army in North Waziristan, where they are vaccinating children riding by in vehicles. But many people are afraid the militants will find out if they vaccinate their children at the checkpoints.

Durry, the WHO official, said authorities have confirmed five polio cases in North Waziristan and three others in the nearby district of Bannu this year. The five cases in North Waziristan were confirmed since the beginning of August, two of them on Wednesday, said a local health official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. Officials are still investigating 20 suspected cases, he said.

There have been a total of 12 confirmed cases since the militant ban, the official said. Tribal elders sent to ask the militants to change their minds haven't been successful, said Jahan Mir, a senior government health official in Miran Shah.

There also have been confirmed polio cases this year in the Khyber tribal area and the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Punjab, Durry said. Health officials had planned to immunise 34 million children across the country, but 1.5 million have not received the vaccine because of security threats, he said.

Threats by Al Qaida-linked militants also have hampered vaccination efforts this year in Somalia, which has suffered the worst polio outbreak in the world. The country has confirmed 108 cases so far, more than all other countries combined, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative website. There have been at least 192 confirmed cases worldwide in 2013.

Somalia isn't even one of the three countries where polio is considered endemic. Those are Pakistan, its neighbor Afghanistan and Nigeria, where militants killed polio vaccinators in the northern city of Kano in February.

Irfan Khan, a father of two young children in North Waziristan's Mir Ali town, said he hoped authorities succeed in appealing to the militants to protect the local population.

"The government and the militants should both compromise to allow children to get the vaccine," he said.

Posted by Steve White 2013-09-03 00:00|| || Front Page|| [10 views ] Top

#1 "Mo didn't have vaccines, neither will you"

Posted by Frank G 2013-09-03 10:42|| 2013-09-03 10:42|| Front Page Top

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