Polio and Pakistan

Inayatullah Rustamani

Today polio is rife in Pakistan due to its full engagement in the war by being a close US ally and spending everything there. The travel bans on Pakistanis will further weaken Pakistan’s efforts to fight the crippling polio disease

Inevitably, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared Pakistan a polio-exporting country and has imposed travel bans on its citizens. WHO’s Emergency Committee members and its expert advisors held a two-day meeting on the alarming spread of polio on April 28 and 29 in Geneva. The meeting declared 10 countries polio-infected, including three countries as polio-exporting countries — Pakistan, Syria and Cameroon. Travel restrictions have been imposed on polio-exporting countries by requiring polio vaccination certificates from their citizens before flying abroad. The WHO team has prescribed certain hard conditions for the polio-exporting countries before the travel ban can be lifted. First, these countries each have to declare a national public health emergency. Second, aspiring travellers should receive a dose of OPV or inactivated polio-virus vaccine (IPV) between four weeks to 12 months prior to any international travel. Third, the travel restrictions will be lifted if the polio-exporting country does not export the polio virus. And last, the country should maintain documentation of the complete application of top level and quality polio eradication activities in the affected areas.

Pakistan tops Syria and Cameroon in exporting the polio virus. The given WHO conditions are very hard to implement in Pakistan in the prevalent conditions. The federal government has pleaded that it has no money to buy polio vaccines on an urgent basis and has appealed to WHO for the provision of polio vaccines. However, the federal government has money for the Prime Minister’s (PM’s) Youth Business Loan and the PM’s Laptop Scheme. Failing to meet the WHO conditions would mean the continuation of travel restrictions and addition to the sufferings of air travellers. It is very bizarre that first international cricket teams refused to play cricket in Pakistan owing to security threats, and now Pakistani citizens are not allowed without polio vaccination certificates to fly to foreign countries because of the threat of polio that they carry.

It is alarming that out of 59 polio cases within the first four months of this year, 40 cases have been reported from North Waziristan, while the remaining are in other areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or Karachi. Not a single case has been reported from Punjab and Balochistan this year. This high number of polio cases has not emerged overnight. In 2013, there were 91 polio cases and in the preceding year there were 58. Pakistan was close to being a polio-free country but the disclosure of the spying incident that located al Qaeda head Osama bin Laden by Dr Shakil Afridi while administering polio drops brought a strong reaction and propaganda by religious groups against polio vaccinations. The fanatics first told the illiterate masses that the polio drops are un-Islamic as they claim they contain male and female infertility chemicals. They also frequently attack polio workers and threaten parents with dire consequences if they administer polio drops to their children. This has all added to the increase of polio in Pakistan. Then Prime Minister (PM) Yousaf Raza Gillani launched an anti-polio drive in 2010 and appointed Asifa Bhutto Zardari, the daughter of former PM the late Benazir Bhutto, as a goodwill ambassador for polio eradication. She tried to create awareness among the masses about the crippling effects of polio and worked hard to contain it. The militants, being arch-rivals of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), tried hard not to allow polio drives in the tribal areas. This is the reason that today it is now a hub of the polio virus. Militants attack immunisation teams; they have killed some 56 polio workers since December 2012. The militants’ attacks are to discourage the meagre daily wage earning polio workers. The health sector of the country is a completely neglected sector. A very small budget is allocated to this very crucial sector. The government allocated a total of Rs 35.6 billion for the health sector in the annual budget for the fiscal year 2013-14. With this meagre budget, a crippling disease like polio cannot be combated and finally eradicated. Pakistan has to do much by banking on its own revenues. This disease affects our children and brings infamy to Pakistan. Thus the government of Pakistan has to allocate much to the health sector to fight a pitched battle against this paralysing disease. It was incumbent on the Pakistani representative present in the WHO meeting to save Pakistani citizens from travel restrictions by explaining to them that there has been a rise of polio cases due to intensified terror strikes in the country.

The world community must not forget the sacrifices of Pakistan in the war on terror and must play its role to lift the travel restrictions on Pakistani citizens. Today, polio is rife in Pakistan due to its full engagement in the war by being a close US ally and spending everything there. The travel bans on Pakistanis will further weaken Pakistan’s efforts to fight the crippling polio disease. This country should not be pushed to a state of isolation by disconnecting its citizens from the world. The travel restrictions on Pakistanis mean leaving Pakistan alone at a most difficult time when Islamabad is already struggling with terrorism, an energy crisis and threats to democracy. Polio is not a Pakistan-specific disease, the way the WHO has tried to portray it by punishing all Pakistanis. The presence of this virus anywhere is a threat to everywhere. This was the time of the world community to stand by Pakistan to tackle the polio virus, rather than leaving Islamabad alone.