Polio ignorance

As far as efforts to combat polio are concerned, Pakistan has been doing better this year than during 2015 or the disastrous year that came before it when 306 cases of polio were reported in the country. So far this year, six cases have been reported compared to 20 at the same time last year. The anti-polio campaigns are also being run on more scientific lines and with greater determination as Pakistan attempts to remove the stamp of a polio endemic country which still appears alongside its name. The third campaign launched this year to vaccinate children against polio targeted 36.8 million children and was able to reach 97 percent of them. The key reason in failing to reach all was the refusal by parents – in 46,697 cases – to have their children vaccinated. Even second visits to these homes by the anti-polio teams failed to persuade parents to allow the amber drops to be administered to their children.

It is ignorance and the deliberate circulation of misinformation that lead parents to make decisions to endanger their children’s life and welfare. A campaign run for many years suggesting that polio drops cause sterility and that they are part of a western conspiracy against the country has taken root in too many minds. The problem has expanded beyond the tribal areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa into urban centres across the country. We need to combat this thinking. To go alongside the drive against polio, we must launch a campaign to re-educate people. These conspiracy theories need to end. Those in society who hold positions of respect and influence – including schoolteachers, doctors, mosque clerics and religious scholars – need to be involved in this process. Parents must be made to realise they are failing their children by pushing away the protection that the anti-polio vaccine offers. We must ensure that every single child in the country is indeed safeguarded against the disease and all hurdles that stand in the way of this systematically removed.