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2019-12-31 India-Pakistan

[Dawn] THE outgoing year has proved a devastating one for the anti-polio campaign. As 2019 progressed, reports about the number of polio cases and the mismanagement of the campaign itself went from bad to worse. At least 119 cases have been reported so far, making the previous year’s tally of 12 look almost paltry by comparison. What is also unnerving are the reports of the large number of children who were missed in the vaccination drives. Health authorities in Sindh have revealed that out of the 9m children targeted in the recent polio drive earlier in the month, some 297,000 children were not vaccinated against the crippling disease. The highest number of children who were not administered the vaccine were from Larkana division, followed by Hyderabad division, Shaheed Benazirabad and then Mirpurkhas. Though the number of children may not seem that high given the target of 9m, there are reasons why the matter should still be of concern. The first is that polio officials in Sindh had claimed at the conclusion of the immunisation drive that they had achieved ‘101pc coverage’. In fact, this puzzling assertion was not limited to Sindh; even the Ministry of National Health Services claimed that 99pc children under the age of five had been immunised across the country in the latest vaccination drive.

The other reason is the constant emergence of new polio cases from Sindh and KP, even in winter that is usually seen as as the low-transmission season. Immunisation drives carried out in the colder months are important for building up herd immunity in children, which is more difficult to achieve during the summer. The fact that polio cases keep emerging is a sign that immunisation drives carried out earlier in the year may also have missed their intended targets. The battle against polio is long and Pakistan has just begun its struggle anew. Perhaps it is time to review our anti-polio efforts and make them more transparent and credible for the collective benefit of millions of children across the country.

Posted by trailing wife 2019-12-31 00:00|| || Front Page|| [5 views ] Top

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