The polio front

Pakistan’s bloody war against polio continues along the same patterns seen last year, with terrorists unleashing fury on health workers attempting to deliver polio drops to children and on those deployed to protect them. On Monday last week in Karachi, a city that has seen attacks on polio workers before, a policeman was shot as he accompanied an anti-polio team into the Orangi area of the Sindh capital, where a four-day localised drive was planned. The constable was shot by two motorcyclists who drove past the vaccinating team. The campaign in Sindh was resumed Thursday after a three-day gap. The attack that caused this disruption mimics those seen in 2014, when at least 65 health workers were killed in different parts of the country by terrorists in an attempt to prevent the vaccine reaching children.
The fact that 297 cases of polio were recorded in the country that year, nearing it’s own record of 299 in 1998, is of course directly linked to these attacks. They are intended to stop polio drops from being delivered, and they have succeeded in doing so with campaigns called off in both North and South Waziristan, Balochistan and other parts of the country due to the risk to vaccinating teams. The risk quite clearly continues, and in its presence the cases of polio rise with six more already recorded in the first month of 2015. Pakistan is now responsible for 80 percent of polio cases around the world; strains of the disease emanating from the country have been detected in Syria, Egypt and China among other countries and the WHO has declared the country calamity hit. But who is to deal with this calamity? The government, from time to time, calls meetings and issues statements. Public awareness campaigns have been launched, involving clerics, celebrities and other prominent figures. But on the ground nothing seems to change; polio continues to take its toll; those trying to prevent it are targeted and it seems the authorities can do little except look on as this process continues. There are no signs to suggest anything resembling success against the disease. Can we hope that our new-found resolve to defeat and eliminate extremism will also lead to a change in the situation on the polio front?