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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistani officials hoped that 2019 would be the year they would succeed in their polio campaign and declare Pakistan polio-free. But a complete victory has proved elusive.
Instead, the country's anti-polio campaign has been hampered by recent deadly attacks on health workers and resistance from parents in some parts of the country to vaccinate their children against the disease. Among these challenges, new cases of poliomyelitis continue to surface, with eight new cases reported this year.
The polio virus has also been detected in wastewater samples in several cities, including Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, the capital, which is worrisome for health officials.
Last week, a nationwide vaccination campaign had to be temporarily suspended after two separate attacks resulting in the death of a female health worker and two police officers overseeing an eradication team. polio.
During the vaccination campaign that ended on Saturday, Pakistan has managed to vaccinate more than 37 million children, which is close to the 39 million goal. But in the cities of Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta, active search for unvaccinated children has been suspended due to security concerns. We are now wondering whether the next immunization campaign, scheduled for June, will start on time.
"This poses a serious threat to children across the country," said Atta.
Pakistan is one of three countries, with neighboring Afghanistan and Nigeria, where polio still exists.
The local polio eradication campaign remains a source of deep suspicion and fear. Extremist Islamists believe that the vaccination campaign is part of a Western effort to sterilize Muslims. The fact that the IAC used a vaccination team to find Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani city in 2011 helped to fuel resistance to vaccination campaigns in the country. Activists have frequently attacked health workers, accusing them of spying, and the police have been deployed to ensure the safety of the polio teams.
Poor immunization services, malnutrition, unsafe water and inadequate sanitation have allowed the virus to survive and paralyze vulnerable children with low immunity, officials said. And anti-vaccine propaganda on social media has compounded the problem.
"As a result, we continue to carry missing children during vaccination campaigns," said Atta.
Successive governments have launched awareness campaigns and repeatedly mobilized religious scholars to dispel the concerns of parents and counter anti-vaccination propaganda. Nevertheless, attacks against polio workers continued.
On April 22, an angry mob ignited a public health facility in Peshawar, capital of northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, after rumors spread that vaccines expired ones would be administered to children. Dozens of children complained of nausea and vomiting after receiving the drops of polio. Within hours, thousands of parents invaded local hospitals and demanded that their children be examined.
As panic spread and an emergency was declared in local hospitals, officials said the vaccine was neither outdated nor dangerous.
Mr. Atta said that he had lived in Peshawar for 18 years but that he had never witnessed such hysteria and such panic.
A day after the fire at the health center, a police officer in charge of the safety of health workers was killed, also in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Another police officer was killed the next day in another part of the province. At least 700,000 families have refused polio immunization in the province because of rumors and panic, local media reported.
And on Thursday, unidentified gunmen shot dead a health worker while another female worker was seriously injured during an attack in southwestern Pakistan.
Even major cities, including Islamabad, have been resistant to polio vaccination campaigns.
"The biggest challenge in cities like Islamabad is the parents' refusal," said Muhammad Hamza Shafqaat, Deputy Commissioner of Islamabad. "Even if 1% of children do not get the polio drops, the polio sample stays alive in the environment and we have to work harder in the next campaign."
The government is committed to fighting misconceptions in communities and building trust and demand for polio vaccines, officials said.
On Sunday, Noor-ul-Haq Qadri, Minister of Religious Affairs, solicited the help of clerics and religious scholars in Peshawar, warning them against those who spread negative propaganda against polio vaccination. .
"Religious scholars all over the country agree that children must be vaccinated against polio," the minister said.
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