PESHAWAR, Oct 26: Health authorities — who are gearing up for a three-day nationwide anti-polio campaign starting on Oct 30 — fear that more than 100,000 children of the Swat district may not be immunised due to security problems there.

“In the last special polio campaign health authorities missed 9,000 children due to inaccessibility to some villages,” said an official of the health department.

He said this time areas like Char Bagh, Shahgram, Khwazakhela, Choprial, Joora and Mian Killey could be inaccessible, depriving about 1,07,662 children below the age of five years of the oral polio vaccine.

Swat district has not reported any case since 1993. One case reported from Swat this year involved a Pakistani student living in Australia, who had come to Swat. He later returned to Melbourne.

The 22-year-old student, a resident of the Punjab province, later developed some problems for which he was hospitalised and ultimately diagnosed to have had polio. So, the federal government included the case in the tally of the NWFP on the argument that he had got the virus during his visit to Swat in June this year.

Sources in the health department, said the polio virus was still in Swat but because of the security concerns it was impossible for them to report and diagnose the children suspected of having the disease.

Maulana Fazlullah, a local cleric, has been vigorously campaigning against the polio vaccine. He delivered speeches on FM radios, asking the people that it was a US plot to cut the Muslim population.

In a press conference on Friday, Health Secretary Abdus Samad Khan said they would try to vaccinate the children in the entire Swat district. “We can vaccinate the children later also if the security situation doesn’t improve,” he said.

Flanked by UN officials, he underlined the need for vaccinating children to help eradicate polio from the country. He said that 125 countries of the world had already eliminated the crippling ailment. About 5.45 million children with the help of 16,609 teams would be vaccinated during the campaign.

According to the WHO, Pakistan, India, Nigeria and Afghanistan are still endemic and are responsible for transportation of the disease to areas which had been declared polio-free long ago.

Anti-polio campaign was launched in Pakistan in 1994 due to which the number of cases had been reduced to only 16 this year. As on October 10,575 polio cases had been reported worldwide, he added. Of the five cases reported from the NWFP and Fata, two were from Nowshera and one each from Khyber Agency, Peshawar and Swat district.

Answering a question, he said the drive would definitely encompass the turbulent Swat district. Ashfaq Yusufzai