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| India-Pakistan |
| Fifth polio case in Karachi confirmed |
| 2014-05-13 |
| [DAWN] While the World Health Organisation has recently put travel restrictions on the country for its high contribution to polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set... cases being detected across the world, the health authorities of Sindh on Monday recorded this year's fifth polio case in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... in an 18-month-old girl residing in one of the areas labelled as the most sensitive as far as the crippling viral disease is concerned. Sources in the Prime Minister's Polio Cell in Islamabad identified the fifth victim as Hafsa, daughter of Marjan, whose stool samples had been sent to the National Institute of Health three weeks ago. Officials in the Sindh government said the girl was among those children who missed out on the past polio campaigns because of refusals by their families. "Family living in Manghopir's Sultanabad Sector 3 didn't allow her to be administered a single booster during our frequent campaigns. Our volunteers risk their lives to save those children, yet we see all this," said a senior provincial government official in a dejected tone. Administratively, the officials said, the locality fell in the union council 8 of Gadap Town. Out of the five polio cases detected so far in the city, three were reported in Gadap alone, while one each belonged to Baldia and Orangi. Polio workers have repeatedly come under attacks in Gadap town in recent years, compelling the authorities to suspend the immunisation campaigns quite often in Gadap and some other areas of the city. Officials in Gadap Town said the girl's family came to Karachi from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas some six months back. They were unable to say to which tribal agency the family belonged. Last year a polio team was attacked during an anti-polio drive in Gadap. Similarly, a local paramedic associated with polio vaccination was rubbed out and a doctor working for the World Health Organisation, Fosten Dido, from Ghana and his driver were maimed in 2012 in two separate attacks in the Sohrab Goth area. Also in December 2012, a young volunteer associated with the anti-polio campaign was rubbed out in an attack in Gadap town. While the Sindh government initially ordered the law-enforcement agencies to provide security to polio workers during such campaigns, a strategy was later worked out to provide better security to volunteers and ensure maximum coverage during anti-polio campaigns. On Jan 21, 2014, three polio workers, two of them female, were killed in Qayyumabad. Following the deadly attack, theSindh government decided that cycle of violence riding be banned for eight hours in 24 union councils of Karachi on Sundays for the safety of the vaccinators participating in anti-polio drive in these areas during these hours. Since then the special polio campaigns are run in selected areas of the city on Sundays with proper security cover. However, if you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning... this time the health authorities postponed its special polio campaign in 'sensitive' neighbourhoods because of police preoccupation with protest demonstrations organised by some political parties on Sunday, the officials said. The vaccination has attained even more importance in the wake of the travel restrictions imposed by the World Health Organisation on the country for its staggeringly high contribution to the polio cases recorded globally this year. |
| Posted by:Fred |