Pakistan: Polio perils

Soon all roads will lead away from Peshawar. The city has been implicated by the World Health Organisation as the ‘largest reservoir’ of endemic polio, with more than 90 percent of polio cases in the country traced back to strains of the virus found in the city. Since Pakistan is one of only three countries in the world – the others being Afghanistan and Nigeria – that face a polio endemic, that makes Peshawar one of the cities in the world in most urgent need of a public health intervention. The problem, as we are well aware of now, is that no vaccination campaign can be entirely successful when a powerful militant organisation is playing on our fears of western intentions to denounce polio vaccinations as a diabolical plot. That the TTP backs its rhetoric with murderous violence against those carrying out the vaccinations and those guarding them only makes the problem harder to solve. A full 10 percent of the children in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are yet to be vaccinated while the number is much higher in the adjoining tribal areas where the TTP has even more control.

Should we continue down this losing path in the fight against polio we can expect wide-ranging repercussions. The disease travels fast, as we can already see with the migration of polio from Peshawar to other parts of the country. It has already gone as far as Syria. India, recently declared polio-free, will require travellers from Pakistan to show proof that they have been vaccinated in the last six months. That may be only the start of the likely travel bans we are to face. The world will be frustrated that a disease which can easily be eliminated through vaccinations may make a worldwide occurrence because of the propaganda and crimes of obscurants. Before they take the necessary step of preventing us from spreading the disease further, we will have to take action ourselves. Possible measures that could be taken is vaccinating children at schools, or making it a requirement for admission. Birth certificates and other forms of identification could only be issued if the child is vaccinated. Some out of the box thinking may also be needed like dropping by air polio vaccines in TTP-held areas so that they themselves can save their children. All these measures may sound coercive but eliminating polio is too urgent a need for niceties to come in the way.