Criminal neglect
Punjab will have to answer for grave neglect and maladministration in its anti-polio drive. According to news reports, the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) staff has ‘wasted’ at least 24 per cent of the Inactivated/Inject-able polio vaccine (IPV). This vaccine is very expensive – so much that the government simply cannot afford it – and is being provided, free of cost, by a well-known global health partner and donor, Gavi. The organisation is active in the world’s poorest countries, ‘creating equal access to new and underused vaccines for children’.
So, not only are we unable to tackle the polio situation on our own – nor even afford some of the most essential vaccines – we are also wasting precious help from the outside. This has happened at a time when Gavi was providing absolutely free vaccine to children who needed about 300,000 doses every month. Some of the stock has been simply wasted, while a good amount has been misused. That means the staff was also not trained properly and no checks and balances were kept. This wastage, too, was discovered by Gavi, which has also complained about lack of interest of relevant authorities regarding the issue.
Interestingly, the same day the press carried reports of Punjab’s anti-polio work being ‘lauded’. Apparently, the country coordinator for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), after meeting with Punjab Health Secretary, Health DG, etc, was all praise for the ‘government’s efforts to fight polio’ and said Punjab was leading Pakistan’s fight against the disease. Such a state of affairs reflects acute disregard for the people’s problems, the government’s responsibilities and its obligations. Little wonder, under such circumstances, that we stand behind the whole world in fighting this crippling disease. This amounts to unforgivable neglect. The Punjab government is wasting not only one of the rarest international gestures of help, but also the precious lives of our children.
