Amid refusals, five more cases of polio reported in KP

PESHAWAR: Amid reports of massive refusals by parents to get children vaccinated, five more kids fell victim to the crippling poliovirus in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Wednesday.

With the latest five polio cases just in a day, Pakistan has reported 37 polio cases this year so far; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa share is 31. The government and its relevant agencies are worried about growing refusals, saying it has been observed that 8 per cent of the parents refused vaccination of their children.

“This is a very bad news for us and we may not eradicate polio in years if refusals were not countered and people’s trust on polio vaccine wasn’t restored,” a senior government official associated with a national institution told The News. Three cases were reported from Bannu and two from Torghar district.

Last time when five polio cases were reported in KP on June 27 this year, three cases were reported from Bannu and two other from Torghar. The government had earlier announced to lodge criminal cases against parents refusing polio vaccines to their children.

Three districts, included Bannu, Lakki Marwat and North Waziristan tribal district, known problematic for polio workers, were excluded from taking legal action against parents refusing polio vaccines to their children. And some officials believe the surge in polio cases was reported soon after recent relaxation.

Officials argued the three districts were excluded from legal action due to local sensitivities. Out of 31 polio cases in KP, Bannu alone has reported 14 cases so far. The district health officer was recently removed from services allegedly on his poor performance. Interestingly, Chief Minister Mahmood Khan had also ordered replacement of DHO Lakki Marwat on his unsatisfactory performance, but he is yet to be removed.

Also, senior officials of the polio programme told The News that all claims made previously about vaccination coverage were based on wrong figures. To counter negative propaganda against the polio vaccination, the government had recruited hundreds educated people and tasked to remove mistrust of the people and ensure each child to be vaccinated against polio. Most of them are stated to be paid from funds of foreign donors.

According to officials, it has been proved that data about coverage was wrong and the number of missed children including refusals and those listed ‘not available’ was much higher than reported officially before.

“In January 2019, the data collected from fields said that 101.07 per cent children were given vaccines during campaign. It was absolutely wrong as they intentionally provided wrong figures to the government and foreign organisations providing support in polio eradication,” said the senior official.

He claimed their purpose was hiding high number of refusals from the government and donors. He argued it was due to wrong and exaggerated data about coverage they created an epidemic like situation today.

According to officials, when pressure was built up on polio workers and other officials to recommend them for legal action, people in the polio programme just started ‘fake finger marking’ to avoid punitive action by the government and reaction from the community.

A female polio worker in Peshawar said some of their colleagues had already quit jobs as they were under pressure from their bosses to go to the field for vaccination. “How can we go to the community in these situations as we are not safe? Previously, a limited number of people used to oppose vaccination, no everybody is refusing and passing very negative remarks when we are walking in the streets,” the polio worker told The News on condition of anonymity.

She said that most of the workers do ‘fake finger marking’ to unvaccinated children of refusing parents avoid action against them by their respective officials. “The polio workers do fake finger marking to hide refusals and not available children whenever coverage is inspected,” he said.

The government is reluctant to launch a proper polio campaign in the province due to fears of massive refusals of the parents, particularly after the incident took place in April 2019 when thousands of children were hospitalised in Peshawar due to reaction to them allegedly after getting the vaccine.

Interestingly, 99 per cent coverage was reported until now. But in Bannu alone, the number of missed children went from 800 to 18000 in June when it was excluded from legal action, even though a lot of focus was made last month to remove mistrust of the parents.

Similar is the case of Lakki Marwat and North Waziristan where 8 per cent children were denied vaccines. In a recent survey, the government found 55 per cent parents refused polio vaccination in Battagram district people have no longer a trust on the campaign.

According to officials, 8 per cent of the children are being refused vaccines. And if the same ratio of refusals was reported from other districts it would mean that 700,000 children, out of 7 million population of the children in KP, would remain unvaccinated.

“And if we continued missing these 700, 000 children in every round, it means we would not eradicate polio in the 2000 years,” said the official of KP Health Department. Focal Person to the Prime Minister on Polio, Babar bin Atta, when reached for comments, said that leadership of Pakistan polio programme fully understands that any outbreak cannot be caused without immunity gap and immunity gap is caused by repeatedly missed children.

“The whole world including New York is in the grip of one of the worst anti vax movement and Pakistan is also suffering from the same. It has already been decided that we will not vaccinate using force and coercion and shall persuade parents using innovative communication strategies,” said Babar bin Atta.

He said they had recently excluded three districts- Bannu, Lakki Marwat and North Waziristan from registering criminal cases against refusing parents and the number of refusals increased from 800 to 18000 in June. He said that instead of entire province, they are planning a three-day polio campaign in 11 districts of the province.