JUST a couple of years back, Pakistan appeared to be at the verge of polio eradication as just twelve cases were reported in the 2018 and only eight in 2017. However the cases mounted to 144 last year and the surge continues during the current year as well, as twelve cases have already been reported in the first two months of the current year.
These figures clearly indicate that the eradication efforts have completely faltered. Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), in its report, has made a searing and devastating condemnation of the state of polio transmission in Pakistan saying the KP has reassumed its position as a major global barrier to polio eradication whilst the situation of virus circulation in other provinces has been declared as intense. This really should ring alarm bells in the relevant quarters entrusted with the responsibility to check the polio. The GPEI very pertinently has termed the resurgence of polio in the country as the outcome of dysfunctional team-work and absence of political unity. Indeed the present government revised its anti-polio strategy but as it was prepared without taking on board the relevant stakeholders including the political parties, therefore, the consequences are before everybody. A strategy that is fragmented or that has been drawn up by a selected few without adequate consultation is doomed to failure. In any emergency like situation, the unity and team work is a must and if we want to save our children from this crippling virus which is also earning bad name for the country at the international level, it is time for the government to sit together with different segments of society including the religious scholars and all the provincial governments and the political parties in order to efficiently carry out the polio vaccination campaign. We rather will ask the government to form a special Joint Committee of Parliament on Polio to formulate a way forward that ensures hundred per cent coverage as well as proper security for the polio workers. A massive awareness campaign should be launched through print and electronic media to let people know what polio is and what its consequences are.
