Pakistan's failure in eradicating polio

With polio still uncontrolled the WHO has finally recommended that Pakistanis travelling abroad should present a polio vaccination certificate. Earlier, WHO had declared India and 10 other Asian countries polio-free. Pakistan is one of only three countries in the world, the other two being Afghanistan and Nigeria, where polio is yet to be eradicated.

Successive governments failed to take the issue of polio seriously despite the havoc it has wreaked in the country by making thousands of children suffer from a most debilitating and permanent physical damage. It is understandable why Pakistan is being shunned by the countries which have got rid of the endemic disease. The government failed to take note when Saudi Arabia clamped travel restrictions on visitors from Pakistan. In October 2011, WHO warned that if the polio virus was not contained, Pakistan could face serious consequences. None heeded the warning. Early this year India also placed restrictions on visitors from Pakistan.

Successive governments failed to sort out the ignorant clerics who declared that the polio vaccination was an American conspiracy to spread sterility among the Muslim community. They incited attacks on polio workers and the security personnel attached with them. The killings led to lulls in the campaigns causing hundreds of thousands of children missing polio vaccination.

The policy of appeasement towards the TTP by both the PML-N and PTI has led to more attacks on polio workers than ever before. In January, the WHO declared Peshawar as the largest endemic poliovirus reservoir in the world. With the terrorists from Pakistan’s polio infected tribal areas proceeding for jihad to Syria, they acted as carriers of the Pakistani strain of polio to countries of the Middle East, including Egypt and Israel. Earlier, 23 children in Sinkiang were affected by polio, and it was confirmed after DNA analysis that the virus had been transmitted from Pakistan. This too was presumably carried by the Chinese jihadists operating from the tribal areas.

Complacency regarding polio continues to mark the PML-N administration. State Minister for Health Services and Regulations Saira Afzal Tarar hopes to address the concerns of the WHO so that by the next assessment the travel restrictions are reversed. How can this happen when in December last year, 47,099 children were missed all over Pakistan because their parents refused the vaccination. While Punjab chief of Task Force on Polio Eradication claimed that no polio case had been reported in Punjab during the current year, samples taken the next day from two of Lahore’s Main Outfall pumping stations tested positive. To bring Pakistan out of growing isolation the government has to eradicate terrorism with an iron hand and stop the use of religion against polio vaccination. Terrorism and extremism have to be eradicated if the country is to survive and prosper and be regarded as a responsible member of the comity of nations.