KARACHI: Balochistan polio case alarms Sindh officials
By Mukhtar Alam
KARACHI, April 9: Detection of a new polio case in Nasirabad, Balochistan, has alarmed all those involved in activities relating to the eradication of the disease across Sindh and Balochistan.
Project Director of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation, Sindh, Dr Salma Kausar Ali told Dawn on Monday that no polio case had been confirmed in the province for about three months, but the latest one reported from a Balochistan area adjacent to Sindh districts of Kashmor and Jacobabad had alarmed all the stakeholders.
The new confirmed case called for executing some extra monitoring activities, she said, adding that the disease could still make its way into Sindh any time if due attention was not paid by officials, workers and campaigners of polio eradication.
Only two confirmed polio cases, one each in Karachi and Jacobabad, were reported this year in addition to a ‘contact case’ reported in Khairpur. Two cases each from Balochistan and the NWFP have also been reported, taking the overall tally in the country this year to six.
Commenting on the situation, Dr Salma said that Sindh was facing problems of excessive nomadic influx and frequent movement of population across the provincial border shared mainly with Balochistan. “You cannot stop anyone from travelling and this makes journey of polio virus into the province possible,” she argued, claiming that the two confirmed cases this year also migrated from Qandahar.
Dr Salma said that in the coming national immunisation drive, scheduled for April 24-26, at least one monitor would be posted in each union council of Kashmor. The monitors will belong not only to the provincial WHO, Unicef and EPI setups but relevant personnel from these agencies’ Islamabad setups, according to her.
Another source quoted a senior health official from Ghotki as saying that the EPI workers were finding it difficult to reach remote areas of Kashmor district’s reverine belt, bordering Ghotki.
Yet another health official, from Kambar, at a meeting on polio eradication activities, had stressed the need for establishing a permanent EPI post at the entry/exit points between Sindh and Balochistan. According to him, the UC Ghaibidero was hard to reach because of the mountainous area.
A Keamari official is of the view that his town bordering Balochistan could be accessed through one land route, the Hub River Road. Hundreds of vehicles cross into Karachi from Balochistan via this road and it is not possible for the transit points to cover all children brought in by these vehicles as most of them do not stop at these points.
Dr Salma says that in view of the possibility of the travel of the disease from other districts or province, about 26 permanent EPI centres have been set up in Sindh, including those at airports, railway stations and inter-province bus stops, to administer polio drops and vaccines for measles, etc.
Meanwhile, at a polio-surveillance review meeting on Monday, the situation related to Karachi was discussed on Monday. Group leaders and facilitators said in their presentations that the overall situation had improved significantly while surveillance for acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) had also been augmented in various towns.
Group leaders, however, pointed out that all health care providers in the government and private sectors should be included in the AFP; surveillance workshops should be held in hospitals; and social mobilisation for polio reforms and sensitisation of general physicians should be enhanced.
