With the number of polio cases increasing alarmingly in Pakistan and no planned anti-polio campaign by door-to-door teams in different sectors of Islamabad, people are scared about the health of their children. Despite the fact that Islamabad has so far maintained the status of a polio free city, people feel threatened by any eventuality if the government does not ensure door-to-door polio vaccination. Sadia Bibi, a mother of two who lives in G-9/4, told Pakistan Today, “I don’t know when the polio team visited our home last time for administrating the polio drops. Now I feel scared for my children as the number of polio cases in our country is increasing very rapidly.”
She was of the opinion that when no one visited their home during previous campaign, she made a complaint after which a team reached the same day. Interestingly instead of showing any concern, the supervisor started blaming her, saying they had visited the home but she was not available that time. She said the same exercise was repeated on another occasion, which forced her to visit the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), but the supervisor told her that the campaign had ended and they did not have polio drops at the hospital.
She questioned if someone missed a polio campaign due to any reason what would he or she have to do to save their kids from the disease, adding that the government should also pay attention to providing alternative options. Zubair Shah, who is also feel insecure amidst the increasing number of polio cases, said he had three kids under the age of five. “Whenever I listen about the more innocent kids falling prey to the crippling virus, I become concern about my kids as we sometime miss the drops; but now I heard that many of the vaccinated kids were infected by polio, which is very scary scenario.” He said if the government let the virus spread, it would take no time to make Islamabad an infected city, similar to what had happened in Gilgit-Baltistan where one case was reported recently.
Meanwhile, the District Health Department Islamabad on Monday launched a four-day special anti-polio drive in eight union councils of Islamabad. Islamabad District Health Officer (DHO) Dr M Azhar Khan claimed that they had constituted 87 mobile teams for the campaign. As many as 45, 000 children would be administered anti-polio drops during this door-to-door drive. Four zonal supervisors and 19 area in-charges have been deputed for monitoring performance of mobile teams. It is worth mentioning here that at least six new polio cases had been reported to the federal health authorities from across the country. The new cases included one each from Frontier Region Bannu and Kohat, both in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while four cases had been reported from Qilla Abdullah, Qilla Saifullah, Harnai and Pishin districts of Balochistan.
An official told Pakistan Today, requesting anonymity, that the federal government was alarmed by the spread of polio across the country and it had directed all the provinces to accelerate and coordinate their efforts for its eradication. According to the official figures, the total number of polio cases reported in Pakistan in 2011 was 174 against 144 in the previous year. “It is very disturbing because as the number of polio cases in other countries are much less. In India, one polio case was reported during the current year, while the figure for Afghanistan was 59 and 45 in Nigeria,” the official said.
