Polio disaster

The third person to die during the country’s latest campaign against polio was a female vaccinator who was killed in Chaman in Balochistan when two men riding a motorcycle opened fire on a group of vaccinators attempting to eradicate the potentially crippling disease from the town. Another female vaccinator has been critically injured. Following the incident, on Friday the National Emergency Operation Centre for Polio called for the ongoing countrywide vaccination drive to be suspended to ensure the safety of 270,000 vaccinators currently in the field. Children set to receive drops will remain unsafe.The recent panic created in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by the spread of fake news regarding the polio vaccination and the consequent increase in hostility and threats was a key factor in the decision. The problems in KP arose after social media content was posted, stating that scores of children had fainted at a school in the province after being administered polio drops. KP lawmakers have demanded action against those spreading the story. But fake news and unverified drivel spouted out over the media certainly contributes to the actions against polio teams and the persons who make them up. Even on mainstream television, apparently educated but inherently rightwing hosts have spread disinformation, informing their audiences that the polio vaccine has been scientifically found to be dangerous and part of some global conspiracy. In a country where the rate of illiteracy is high and ignorance even higher, the projection of such content over the media can be extremely dangerous and needs to be looked into very seriously by Pemra.Pakistan indeed is one of the very few countries in the world which has seen an organised and violent campaign against attempts to protect its children from dangerous disease. The amber polio vaccine has been turned into a matter of controversy, mainly spread by clerics who insisted the purpose was to render Muslims sterile or to harm their children. This has impacted on the success of the vaccination rate, with refusals commonplace not only in remote parts of KP and other provinces but also in major cities such as Karachi, and Pakistan today remains one of only two countries in the world where polio is still rated as being endemic. While Pakistan, through the efforts of lady health workers and others who go into tiny communities to vaccinate children, has recorded an improvement in the rates of polio infection over the last few years, the problem still lurks in the background, threatening to make a return. In 2018, nine cases of polio were reported from the country compared to 210 in 2014. These gains need to be built upon. This cannot happen if vaccination teams continue to come under attack and much-needed vaccination campaigns have to be called off. Those putting forward fake information need to be penalised under relevant laws, vaccination teams protected even better and efforts to make Pakistan a safer place for its children stepped up by vaccinating each one of them. To achieve this, the attacks on polio vaccinators we have seen year after year will have to stop and public hostility to the campaign controlled.

from The News International - Editorial http://bit.ly/2VvZ8YM