October 12, 2008	Sunday	Shawwal 12, 1429

PESHAWAR, Oct 11: About 40,000 children were left out in the last polio vaccination campaign conducted in August in NWFP and Fata due to refusal by their parents, an official said.

The parents refused the administration of oral polio vaccine (OPV) to their children under the misconception that it caused impotency and infertility, which was untrue.

“Misconception about the oral polio vaccines, lack of security and accessibility for vaccinators, clean drinking water, illiteracy on the part of the parents have been the causative agents of the poor immunisation efforts in the province,” said Dr Abdul Jabbar, team leader of the WHO’s polio eradication initiative (PEI) for NWFP and Fata.

According to him, 750,000 couldn’t be reached by the health teams during the campaign owing to law and order situation in Swat, Charsadda, Bajaur, and Mohmand and Kurram agencies. Poliomyelitis, he said had assumed the shape of epidemic, which was evident from the fact that the NWFP and Fata had registered 30 cases of the total 75 polio patients in the country.

“Cross border movement of the Afghan refugees had caused the disease to rise as 19 of the total 20 P3 cases so far reported countrywide were from NWFP/Fata. Genetic sequencing of the polio cases had shown that the P3 virus detected in children in NWFP/Fata had come from Afghanistan,” he added. The virus wasn’t of local nature, he said.

Twenty-five per cent of polio positive cases in NWFP/Fata were from Afghan families, residing here, he added. About other cases, he said that 26 of the diagnosed positive cases had history of multiple intramuscular injections, which was one of the causes of the disease. Besides, poor sanitation, malnutrition, low immunity and poor routine immunisation programme were among the reasons for the surge in number of polio patients.

“We are unable to reach 10 per cent of the targeted 5.6 million children in every campaign,” he added. He said that most of the children had developed polio despite being given OPV because they had either loose motion or suffered from low immunity or malnutrition at the time of giving OPV that didn’t work.

Meanwhile, addressing a news conference on Dr Muqeem Khilji of the expanded programme on immunisation (EPI) of the health department, said that a three-day anti-polio drive would get underway in NWFP and Fata from Monday.