While Pakistan has seen a significant drop in polio cases in the country, with 56 reported for 2015 by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative as opposed to 306 the previous year, it is essential that the momentum of the campaign against the disease be kept up. The target of course is to eradicate the disease in the country and allow Pakistan to finally exit the dwindling list of endemic countries. At the moment, it stands alone alongside Afghanistan as one of the countries in the world where the disease is still endemic. The commissioner of Karachi, Asif Haider Shah, told a news conference on Thursday that Sindh was embarking on a campaign to vaccinate 2.2 million children as part of measures to wipe out the disease from the province. But any success depends on all links in the chain holding firm. At the present time, there is a weak link.
Lady Health Workers in Sindh, who play a crucial role in delivering the polio vaccination drops to children inside their homes have threatened to boycott the campaign if they are not paid their salaries which have been pending for months. The LHWs had staged protests last year as well over the issue and been promised in August 2015 that their dues would be cleared. This has still not happened and the thousands of LHWs in Sindh still struggle to make ends meet. The dozens who gathered in Karachi on Thursday, blocking off roads to the CM House, said they had been driven to a point where they had to borrow or beg for money to pay utility bills and the tuition fees for their children. They abandoned their protest only after an assurance by Sindh Health Secretary Dr Saeed Ahmed Mangnejo that their salaries would be expedited. We hope this is not a false assurance. Since the LHW programme was initiated in 1994, these workers, trained in basic first aid and particularly in maternal and child healthcare, have tirelessly visited homes across the country – often performing tasks that are difficult by talking about issues such as contraception, the care of pregnant women, vaccinations for children and breastfeeding. They are crucial to the anti-polio campaign given that male health workers cannot enter homes due to cultural constraints. The 100,000 or so LHWs in the country today cover about 60 percent of the population. Their services need to be recognised. It is imperative that they be paid what is owed to them, and their services regularised as per the agreements reached in the past, so that these brave women can continue to do their job. Without them, there can be no hope of the latest anti-polio campaign succeeding or of the 2.2 million targeted children receiving the protection that they deserve.
