RECENT reports about emergence of the fifth polio case of the year in Pakistan underline challenges as well as reasons behind continued threat of polio virus despite scores of country-wide campaigns undertaken by the authorities concerned during the last several years. The latest victim is a 17-month-old girl in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Bannu division. Unfortunately, four of this year’s five cases in the country had been detected in the Bannu Division and three among them were from the Bannu district.
Pakistan launched its formal national Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme in 1994 and credit goes to the federal and provincial health authorities and their teams for remarkable success towards achieving the cherished goal of making the country polio free. Their hard work and vaccination had reduced polio cases by 99.8 per cent, from an estimated 20,000 cases in the early 1990s and five so far this year, but transmission remained persistent in southern KP. There were different impediments in the way of realization of this goal including false beliefs, conspiracy theories, fear of side effects, migrating families, cross border and cross region movements and false reporting. Reports indicate many of these challenges have successfully been overcome due to awareness campaigns and active cooperation of opinion leaders including Ulema and teachers. It is not without a reason as to why five of the four polio cases of 2026 are from Bannu division/district as the region is the focus of attacks by terrorist outfits and there have been numerous incidents of attacks and kidnapping of the polio teams, slowing down the universal coverage in the area. This should be an additional source of concern for people of troubled Bannu region as continuation of the virus poses serious threats to their children. A sustained and rigorous awareness campaign should be launched to persuade parents and guardians to get their children immunized regularly on their own even if polio teams could not reach some areas due to security concerns. They should also realize that Pakistan gets a bad name because of the prevalence of polio virus in their areas sparking travel restrictions for their compatriots as well as the requirement of polio drops for undertaking journeys for Umrah and Hajj.
