October 19, 2007	Friday	Shawwal 6, 1428

PESHAWAR, Oct 18: Born on Aug 14, 2004, in Peshawar, Asma was a healthy child until she was diagnosed with polio at the age of nine months.

A team did visit her home for anti-polio vaccination but she was asleep at the time and her mother didn’t bother to wake her up.

Now she is two-and-a-half years old but she can’t walk. Her parents are worried about her future. She crawls across the floor and tries to stand up but in vain.

While polio has no cure, all that is possible is to “make her strong enough not to be a burden on others,” her father Feroz Khan said. “It is painful for us, as well as for her,” he said.

Asma’s mother said all women should realise the importance of administering polio drops to their children in every campaign.

In households such as Asma’s where several families live on the same premises, there are more chances of a child missing immunisation.

“Had we given her polio drops in time, she would not have been in this situation,” said Asma’s mother.

The other children in the family are all healthy as they had completed their immunisation.