Pakistan: The measles and polio menace

DAILY TIMES

Disturbing news concerning the state of our collective health and disease prevention efforts are rife these days from Sindh to Punjab to FATA, and even in foreign climes. The rampant measles outbreak that has afflicted the Sukkur region of Sindh has left some 500 people dead in the last two months, most of them children. The virus has taken on terrifying proportions. It is highly contagious because it is spread from person to person through the air via infectious droplets — leaving a trail of sick and dying children with no hope in sight. The virus does not show any signs of slowing down. In fact, it is tearing through provincial boundaries showing up in all the other provinces, including far flung North Waziristan where some five children have already died and 20 more have been infected in less than a week. This situation is deplorable; helpless children are being struck down by this sickness and the government seems equally as helpless in helping these innocent souls. The high numbers, which speak of an epidemic in the making, have nudged the Ministry of Inter-provincial Coordination to establish a nationwide vaccination programme to counter the fast paced spread of measles. This is too little too late. Disease is no respecter of provincial and national boundaries. The lacklustre way the authorities have been managing the emerging crisis has been disastrous. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has already categorised Pakistan as a country that must be monitored, given the catastrophe of our anti-polio drive. WHO has given Pakistan an ultimatum: counter polio by September 2013 or be quarantined with a ban enforced on international travel. Speaking of polio, two cases of the disease have been reported in Egypt with it being found that this particular polio strain crossed over from Pakistan. This has prompted the Egyptian authorities to start an anti-polio drive in Cairo. It has also made it mandatory for all children travelling from Pakistan to be immunised at the airport before entering Egypt. We should be ashamed of ourselves; we have left our children to rot and foreign lands are apprehensive of letting our citizens enter their country. The government has to tackle this issue on a war footing. It is essential that a medical emergency be declared across Pakistan with inter-provincial coordination taking precedence over anything else. It is not enough now for provincial governments alone or singly to tackle these emerging health problems but for all levels of government, including the federal authorities, to counter this looming catastrophe.