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JUBAIL, SAUDI ARABIA: The World Health Organisation (WHO) has denied that it has suspended the polio vaccination programme in the country and is instead reviewing the extent of security threats to its staff. The latest attack was in Quetta where a vaccination team was attacked and four of the team members were killed. According to reports, the lone policeman who was escorting the team felt it safer (at least for himself) not to resist and simply walked away. This is the situation on the ground, regardless of what the WHO and other international bodies have been trying to tell Pakistan to do, as far as the eradication of polio is concerned.
The prime minister can chair as many high-level meetings on this issue as he wants, and the health minister can issue as many polio-related statements as she wants, but the fact is that the reality on the ground is what it has been for the past few months, if not worse. The government is clearly not taking the polio eradication campaign seriously, because if it were, we would not be seeing attacks on vaccinators on an almost weekly basis. These helpless health workers are paid a few hundred rupees a day and that does not even cover the cost of transport and their meals. No one talks of the millions of dollars the country receives from donor agencies for polio eradication. Unfortunately, Pakistan has become a global reservoir of the poliovirus. The ongoing military operation in North Waziristan has also played a role. It displaced hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom had not had their children vaccinated against the disease. Our government officials, tasked with fighting the spread of the disease, do not do much else other than hold meetings, issue statements, take part in photo sessions and then go to sleep, till the next round of killings.
Someone needs to say enough is enough. The deployment of one or two policemen in troubled areas has proved to be ineffective and perhaps the government needs to consider more drastic measures, such as imposing a curfew and going to each and every home, street by street, so that no child is missed. The government should also take stern action against those parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated.
Masood Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, November 30th, 2014.
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